Johnny T. Butler 
Breaking news! An asteroid shot past Earth today (Sunday, August 18). We’ll tell you all you need to know about it.
More details about the asteroid
The asteroid called 2019 PK was first observed by NASA on August 5. The US Space Acency has kept an eye on it and tracked 2019 PK again because they want to know in which direction it was heading, its size and other important aspects. The asteroid was classified as “Earth Close Approach”.
The news was confirmed by NASA
According to NASA, the asteroid came close to Earth around 6.14 am BST. 2019 PK is a NEO, which means near-Earth object. It’s actually an Apollo type asteroid, as we found out from NASA.
Now, we would like to tell you more about the Apollo type asteroids. Basically, their trajectory is similar to Asteroid 1862 Apollo. All of the asteroids and comets that managed to come close to the Earth or the Sun are usually named NEOs.
The size of the 2019 PK asteroid
According to NASA’s observations and calculations, the diameter of the 2019 PK asteroid was somewhere around 75.5ft to 167ft.
A similar space rock from a few years ago
An asteroid that had a similar size struck Russia in 2013. Nobody expected the asteroid known as Chelyabinsk Meteor to enter the atmosphere.
The good thing was that the asteroid exploded in the air and it didn’t produce massive damage. However, 1000 people were injured by the parts that have disintegrated. Similar events can happen at any time, so NASA and other space agencies should be very vigilant in the future.
Fortunately, 2019 PK did not come too close to the Earth and it was not a threat after all.
That’s all we got so far on 2019 PK. We’ll keep you posted in case something similar will happen again.
