An asteroid bigger than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa will approach closer to Earth next week, reported The National.
Called Asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1, the space rock measures 1.05 kilometres across, bigger than the world’s tallest building in Dubai that stands 0.83km long.
A report by the European Space Agency said that it is expected to fly over the UAE from a safe distance of 1.9 million km, at a speed of approximately 76,192kph, in the late hours of January 18. It would be visible using a telescope.
Its closest approach towards Earth would be on January 19, at 1.49 am, local time.
The space rock was first discovered by Scottish-Australian astronomer Robert McNaught in 1994.
An asteroid crashing into Earth is unlikely but not impossible.
In 2013, an asteroid crashed into the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. It exploded after entering Earth’s atmosphere and released energy equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT. The incident caused more than 3,600 apartment windows to shatter, injuring about 1,000 people.
