Asteroid twice the size of Statue of Liberty is set to whizz past Earth, check details

An asteroid named 2020 XU6 is all set to whizz past earth and is expected to be closest to our planet on February 22.

According to international reports, the asteroid is 213 metres in length and almost twice the size of the Statue of Liberty. It is currently approaching the solar system at a tremendous pace of 30,240 kilometres an hour. To make sense of its speed, the asteroid could travel around the earth in one hour. 

NASA stated that the asteroid will not hit earth, but it has been categorised as “potentially hazardous”.

The premier space organisation has described the asteroid as 'Near Earth Object'.

 “NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood. The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago." NASA said on its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website.

On another interesting note, Nostradamus, the famous French astrologer had predicted that an asteroid as big as the Effiel Tower is approaching the Earth and is predicted to hit sometime early in 2021.

The huge monstrous asteroid is predicted to be 0.83 times the height of the Effiel Tower and would be flying past the Earth.

 Earlier, a gigantic 220-meter asteroid or about as wide as Golden Gate Bridge flew past the Earth at 6.9 million kilometers on January 3.