Geologist Randall Carlson warned about the terrifying consequences of an asteroid strike on Earth as Asteroid Day was held on the 111th anniversary of the Tunguska Event – which obliterated Siberia’s forests in 1908. Mr Carlson was asked by RT host Rick Sanchez: “What is the possibility that we could be hit by an asteroid at any given time? Chillingly, his guest replied: “Well, the odds are higher than most people think.
The formidable asteroid, dubbed Asteroid 2019 LB, shot past the Earth on June 12.
Asteroid trackers at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) warned the asteroid would fly by on a so-called Earth-Close Approach trajectory.
The news came a month after astronomers first observed the rock in space on May 7.
Asteroid LB is an Apollo-type space rock zipping around the inner circles of the solar system.
The JPL estimates LB measures somewhere in the range of 82ft to 180.5ft (25m to 55m) in diameter.
According to NASA, an NEO is an “asteroid or comet with a perihelion distance less than or equal to 1.3 astronomical units”.
One astronomical unit translates into about 93 million miles (149.6 million km), which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
What this means is asteroids like LB orbit the Sun from a maximum distance of around 120.8 million miles (194.5 million km).
And, occasionally, these imposing space rocks will cross paths with the Earth’s own orbit of the Sun.
NASA said: “As they orbit the Sun, Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth.
“Note that a ‘close’ passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometres.”
