If aliens were to take a peek at how planet earth has been doing recently, I'm pretty sure they'd assume we were heading towards an apocalypse. In just the last month or so, the USA has been battered by hurricanes, several Asian countries have experienced extreme flooding, and (just to add insult to injury) a number of measures put in place to tackle global warming have been pulled. At times I find myself asking: can it get any worse? Well, the short answer is... yes. An asteroid estimated to be between 30 and 100 feet wide is heading very close to Earth this week, and it's only set to miss us by a whisker (relatively speaking, that is). The space rock, known by the ever-so-catchy name, 2012 TC4, will pass the planet on October 12 at a distance of 27,000 miles above the surface. Ok, so this may seem pretty far away, but it's actually eight times closer to Earth than the moon. Bizarrely, though, researchers are actually very grateful for the close-call. Dr. Michael Kelley, a scientist with the NASA campaign assigned to observe TC4, explains that: "Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close approach to and safely pass the Earth because they can make preparations to collect data to characterize and learn as much as possible about it. "This time we are adding in another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid threat." This is not the first time TC4 has passed by, either. Five years ago, in 2012, the big old hunk of space stuff soared past our lowly planet at about double the distance of its imminent revisit. So it's definitely getting closer to us; but will it be too close for comfort? Rolf Densing, who is head of the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, iterated that the asteroid will be unnervingly close to some of Earth's outer space assets - but not so close that we should have to worry about it: "The farthest satellites are 36,000 kilometres (22,400 miles) out, so this is indeed a close miss," he told AFP. "As close as it is right now, I think this prediction is pretty safe, meaning that it will miss." If the asteroid did hit, however, it could cause catastrophic damage. In 2013, a 59 foot asteroid hit the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, with the shockwave injuring approximately 1,500 people and causing damage to over 7,000 buildings. The force of its impact was estimated to be equivalent to 20 times the strength of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Scientists predict that, should the worst case scenario become reality, the asteroid would actually burn up before hitting the surface. Nevertheless, "It is something to keep an eye on," according Dr Judit Györgyey-Ries, an astronomer at the McDonald Observatory in Texas, who added that: "we could see an airburst maybe broken windows, depending on where it hits." I guess we're just going to have to accept that this is out of our control, and put our faith in scientific predictions. And, with regards to the things we can control, I think we owe it to our planet to take better care of the place.

Five asteroids are set to come dangerously close to the Earth this year, before a comet the size of Mount Everest is set to pass by next year.

According to reports, five asteroids are due to pass by our planet before the end of the year, varying in size from that of the Golden Gate Bridge to one the size of a school bus.

For most of us, space can be a simultaneously fascinating and terrifying thing. While scientific advancements have given us knowledge about a lot of what's out there, there's a whole lot more that still remains unknown.

And some things we'd rather not know - such as the fact there are giant space rocks hurtling near to us in the next month and a half.

Five huge asteroids are set to pass us in the next few weeks. Credit: zhihao/Getty Images

As reported by the Daily Mail, NASA has flagged five asteroids that will come close to our planet this year, beginning with (2019 CZ2), which is an Apollo-class asteroid - those that cross the orbit of the Earth and shed meteorites that occasionally collide with the Earth.

This will pass by the Earth on November 25 at a distance of 666,000 miles (1.1 million km), and is a pretty small asteroid with a diameter estimated to be between 68ft (21m) and 308ft (94m), making it comparable to a school bus.

This one is not thought to pose any potential danger to our planet, but is a near-Earth asteroid all the same.

(2013 VX4) is set to pass by on December 4, with this asteroid believed to be between 144ft (44m) and 325ft (99m) in diameter, similar to the Statue of Liberty in size.

This Apollo-class asteroid will come to around 1.2 million miles (1.9 million km) from the Earth when it reaches its nearest point.

139622 (2001 QQ142), is also an Apollo-class asteroid and is also pretty terrifyingly massive, as it is believed to be between 0.2 miles (0.347km) and one mile (1.552km) in diameter - so similar to the size of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This one is bigger than 97% of all known asteroids, and will be closest to the Earth on December 6, at 3.4 million miles (5.5 million km) away.

There are many asteroids circling our solar system, some more dangerous than others. Credit: JUAN GARTNER/Getty Images

Another asteroid, 341843 (2008 EV5), is set to pass us on December 20 at a distance of 3.9 million miles (6.3 million km).

This one is an Aten-class asteroid, meaning it is one that spends the majority of its time hidden by the sun and has an orbital period of less than a year.

341843 (2008 EV5) is also no small rock, as it is believed to have a diameter of 1,300ft (0.4km), similar to the size of the  US Capitol building.

Next up is 2020 YO3, another Apollo-class asteroid, which is thankfully smaller than most - but still measures in at between 101ft (31m) and and 230ft (70m) in diameter, making it around the same size as the London landmark Big Ben.

This one will get closest to the Earth on December 23, flying past at a distance of 47,000 miles (1.3 million km), and is not believed to be potentially hazardous to Earth like some of its larger counterparts.

As if that's not enough to give you a cold sweat, next year there's a comet which is nicknamed the "devil" which is expected to be visible in June 2024.

Known as 12P/Pons-Brooks, this space rock is currently exploding "like a volcano" on its way toward Earth - but thankfully, scientists say there's no chance it will actually hit our planet.

Scientists have developed defense strategies should any come too close to our planet. Credit: Maciej Frolow/Getty Images

12P/Pons-Brooks is set to reach its maximum brightness in June, which will make it visible to the naked eye.

And if you were wondering how big 12P/Pons-Brooks is, well, it's actually three times the size of Mount Everest - so that's terrifying enough to know.

While scientists are sure this one won't endanger the Earth, it was the huge Chicxulub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

There's not expected to be another occurrence like that one anytime soon, but NASA has prepared a defense strategy just in case, in the form of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which proved successful last year.

The space agency has so far discovered over a million rocks circling in our solar system, including over 30,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs), some of which they have classes as "potentially hazardous".

Featured image credit: JUAN GARTNER/Getty Images

 

Every day there are new things to worry about in the world. Whether it's terrorist attacks, the rise of fascist movements, global warming, or the unstable relationship between North Korea and every other nation on Earth, sometimes things feel particularly precarious. It's strange to think that we could have been wasting all our time worrying about these world-changing scenarios if an asteroid obliterates the planet in an instant. Not that this latest spotted asteroid will in fact make contact with the Earth, but as it sails by it will serve as a reminder that even our massive planet is vulnerable to the cosmos. This asteroid, which has been named 2018 CB, is set to come as close as just one-fifth of the distance between our planet and the moon today, passing at around 17:30 EST. 2018 CB is between 50 and 130 feet wide reportedly, making it potentially larger than a blue whale. It was first spotted last Sunday by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) near Tuscon, Arizona, who thankfully discovered that it will only skim past Earth. However, NASA's definition of a dangerous asteroid is any one that comes within 4.6 million miles of the planet, and this one will fly just 39,000 miles away. Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said that asteroids only get this close to our planet once or twice a year. Chodas explained: "Although 2018 CB is quite small, it might well be larger than the asteroid that entered the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, almost exactly five years ago, in 2013. "Asteroids of this size do not often approach this close to our planet - maybe only once or twice a year." Chodas is referring to the February 2013 incident in which a 62-foot meteor shattered over Chelyabinsk in Russia. It broke up into multiple pieces as it entered the atmosphere, scattering debris and creating a shock wave that smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured hundreds of people. The energy of this asteroid was equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of TNT. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/RajeshP34676374/status/955827059602767872]] In such an event, we wouldn't be able to deflect an asteroid, but there are contingency plans to protect lives. This would involve predicting the trajectory, size, shape, mass, and composition of the asteroid, then evacuating the impact area and moving key infrastructure as best as we can. Yet there are some new techniques that are being developed. NASA is working on a small spacecraft capable of preventing asteroids from hitting the Earth. There's a test planned for a small non-threatening asteroid using this method in 2024, which will be the first-ever mission to demonstrate a deflection technique for planetary defense. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) would use a kinetic impactor technique to hit the asteroid and shift its orbit, which will hopefully prepare us for any major incident that could occur in the future.

When it comes to issues of space exploration, we tend to trust one organisation and one organisation only. NASA is the agency that's always on hand to astound us with their discoveries in outer space, to warn us when catastrophe is on the way and, more importantly, to tell us how to avoid it. Or so we thought, anyway... Everyone makes mistakes, and that apparently includes if you're an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space programme of aeronautics and aerospace research (with an $18.7 billion yearly average budget). In fact, NASA made a doozy of an oversight when they missed the fact that an asteroid the size of a whale came this close to Planet Earth. Asteroid 2017 VL2 reportedly flew just 73,000 miles from our homeland which is just one-third of the distance between our planet and the moon. In case you're wondering what kind of damage a space rock that size could do, apparently it could easily wipe out a major city like New York. Worryingly, it's reported that astronomers only spotted the asteroid, which measured between six and 32 metres wide, a day after it had zoomed past us on November 9. First seen at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii on November 10, it's been estimated that if the giant space rock had hit Earth, it would have wiped out anything within a radius of about 3.7 miles. However, you'll be thrilled to hear that, now they know it exists, astronomers have their eye firmly on Asteroid 2017 VL2 and estimate that it is not due to shoot past Earth until at least 2125. Phew! This wasn't the first time that NASA has dropped the ball. In fact, despite being filled with some of the most intelligent people on the planet, the space agency is far from infallible. Perhaps one of the stupidest mistakes ever made by the US space exploration organisation is when they launched an Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite which was intended to measure Earth’s CO2 levels. The device was sent up in February 2009, but it never actually made it out of our atmosphere, instead, it plummeting back down to Earth and landing in the Indian Ocean near Antarctica. After nine years of development and over $270 million, people were, needless to say, confused as to what happened and it eventually emerged the rocket hadn't ejected the payload fairing (that's the nose-cone to you and me) and the extra mass meant that the rocket lacked enough power to escape the atmosphere. It was eventually launched successfully, however, it took NASA five extra years, and no doubt a lot of humiliation, to do it.

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Or if you want more NASA boo-boos, there was the time that the agency launched the United States' first and only space station with seemingly absolutely no thought as to how it would come back down to Earth. Skylab lasted for six years in the space, before falling back down to Earth. Luckily NASA were able to guide most of the space station into the Indian Ocean, but that didn't stop pieces landing in the small town of Esperance, Australia. Thankfully no one was injured as a result. But if we're talking mistakes, then the deletion of the moon landing tapes probably takes the cake. One giant leap for mankind became one giant blunder for NASA when it was revealed they had foolishly taped over original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon in 1969. The space agency admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon and it eventually exposed that they were erased and reused by NASA in the early 1980s. Officials insisted that newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better than the old ones, but there's no doubt this fact didn't erase their embarrassment over the situation. Nonetheless, no one is perfect and we can all wipe our foreheads, take a deep breath and be happy that the more recent asteroid missed us - but that is not to say that there aren't thousands of space rocks out there that won't spell disaster for the only object in the Universe known to harbour life. Reportedly, there are more than 8,000 known Apollo rocks and nearly 1,500 could get close enough to Earth to become potentially hazardous. Not to mention a far larger asteroid named 3200 Phaethon is on course to pass by our planet this very month. Russian astronomers have warned us that we are set to have a terrifyingly close encounter with the three-mile wide celestial body on December 17. In case you were wondering, that is half the size of the rock that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Described by NASA to be "a potentially hazardous asteroid whose path misses Earth's orbit by only two million miles", you'll be happy to hear that the monster asteroid will do more good than harm this time; it is thought to cause the stunning Geminids meteor shower today and tomorrow, which will see hundreds of bright meteors beautifully illuminate the night's sky as they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. So, we escaped the fate of all of those Tyrannosaurus Rexes and Velociraptors this time, but we have to say, it was a close call. All we can really do is cross our fingers and hope that NASA and the other space agencies of the world keep a better eye out in future.

Get ready - a mountain-sized "planet killer" asteroid is set to pass by Earth today.

The colossal asteroid dubbed 2011 UL21 will come within 4.1 million miles of Earth, making it one of the largest space rocks to approach our planet in 125 years, per LiveScience.

This "planet killer" asteroid will travel at a staggering 58,000 mph (93,000 km/h) during its flyby, offering a rare opportunity for skywatchers and astronomers to witness the event.

According to SpaceReference.org, it measures between 1.1 and 2.4 miles (1.7 to 3.9 kilometers) wide, making it larger than 99% of known near-Earth asteroids, as confirmed by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The asteroid is set to fly past Earth today. Credit: SCIEPRO/Getty

2011 UL21 is classified as a near-Earth asteroid, meaning its orbit brings it within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) of the sun, or roughly 1.3 times the average distance between Earth and the sun. The asteroid completes an orbit around the sun every three years.

Despite being categorized as a "planet killer" due to its massive size, 2011 UL21 is still much smaller than the Chicxulub asteroid, which is believed to have caused the dinosaurs' extinction approximately 66 million years ago.

Interestingly, 2011 UL21 does not follow the usual orbital path of most NEOs. Instead, it travels at a steep angle, possibly influenced by the gravitational forces of Jupiter.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has noted that Jupiter's gravity can sometimes redirect asteroids towards Earth. 

According to simulations by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 2011 UL21's approach will be the closest it has come to Earth in over a century.

Although its distance will be about 17 times that of the moon from Earth, it is still considered a potentially hazardous object by NASA.

Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, director of the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP), noted in a recent statement: "It is interesting because it's probably one of the 10 biggest asteroids to pass within 4.7 million miles (7.5 million km) of our planet since 1900."

2011 UL21 will not come this close to Earth again until 2089, when it will approach within 1.7 million miles (2.7 million km) of our planet—more than two and a half times closer than this year's flyby.

The asteroid measures between 1.1 and 2.4 miles wide. Credit: Doug Armand/Getty

There is no threat of a planet-killer asteroid impacting Earth for at least the next 1,000 years.

However, a second asteroid, named 2024 MK, will pass much closer on Saturday. Discovered only on June 16, 2024 MK will zip by at a distance of 180,200 miles from Earth - approximately 75% of the distance to the Moon.

Though significantly smaller than 2011 UL21, measuring between 120 and 260 meters wide, 2024 MK could still cause substantial damage if it were to impact Earth.

Dr. Greg Brown, an astronomer at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, commented on the significance of these events, via the Metro: "This week, two asteroids will pass somewhat nearby to the Earth. For small asteroids, this is a very common occurrence, with close passes dozens of times a month. However, these two asteroids are somewhat larger than we normally expect."

There is no chance of the asteroid hitting Earth. Credit: SCIEPRO/Getty

Dr. Brown highlighted the importance of asteroid 2024 MK's recent discovery: "While neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth, 2024 MK was discovered less than two weeks before its projected close approach.

"It is also thought to be considerably larger than the asteroid that caused the Tunguska event, which caused devastation across a 2,000 square kilometer region of — thankfully uninhabited — Siberian countryside in 1908."

For those eager to witness the 2011 UL21, the VTP will host a free live stream from the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Ceccano, Italy.

The stream begins at 4:00PM ET on June 27, with the closest approach expected 15 minutes later.

Additionally, the asteroid will be visible through a telescope, appearing brightest on June 28 and June 29. Viewers in the Northern Hemisphere should look for a brightness similar to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the sun.

Featured image credit: SCIEPRO/Getty