NASA tried to calm sky watchers over a “potentially hazardous” 2001 FO32 asteroid that is set to pass close to the Earth on 21 March.
The rock, measuring up to 1.7 kilometres in diameter, will not hit our planet, the agency has assured the world through Twitter. The reason is simple – the space object is travelling too far from the Earth to cause any harm to our home.
“You may have seen headlines about an #asteroid that will safely fly by Earth on March 21,” NASA wrote. “While this asteroid, known as 2001 FO32, is large, it will safely zip past Earth at a distance of 1.3 million miles—five times further away than the Moon—and poses no risk of hitting Earth.”
1.3 million miles equals around 2 million kilometres – or 0.01348 astronomical units. The moon rotates around our planet at a distance of about 238,856 miles.
The space agency’s message triggered a wave of comments from the internet crowd who joked that a post designed to calm people has had the opposite effect.
“Like the start of a disaster movie this tweet,” one person wrote.