Asteroid is travelling at a fiery speed of 25864 miles per hour. With that kind of speed, the potential for destruction increases significantly. (Image source: NASA)

All the attention has been devoted over the last week to an asteroid that may strike Earth in 2032. However, the risk of Asteroid 2024 YR4 striking Earth has lessened to just 0.28% now, while the chances of the space rock striking the Moon have climbed to nearly 1%. Yes, chances of this asteroid striking the Moon rather than the Earth are far greater in a reversal of fortunes, so to speak, from what was earlier deducted by NASA’s instruments. However, there is another asteroid that has sneaked up on us and it has been dubbed as 2025 DF1. It is travelling at an astonishing speed and will get close to Earth too.

According to NASA, the asteroid will come as close as 2,520,000 miles to Earth. However, the chances of it striking Earth are negligible to none. The asteroid will get the closes to Earth today, Feb. 24. This asteroid is a whopping 110-foot wide, which is as big as an airplane. It is travelling very fast with the speed measured at 25864 miles per hour by NASA instruments.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Small-Body Database Lookup indicates that this asteroid is a near-Earth Asteroid (NEO) and belongs to the Apollo group.

NASA uses quite futuristic technologies to track asteroids that come too close to the Earth. Among them are telescopes that use infrared light. Through these, scientists detect the heat emitted by asteroids making small objects visible even if they are dark.

Considering the threat asteroids pose to earth, NASA deploys spacecraft to study asteroids and among these missions was the Dawn mission to asteroids Vesta and Ceres, and the OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu. The intent is to collect valuable data about the asteroid’s composition, and structure and reveal the secrets they hold as they can be millions of years old and that too preserved in pristine conditions.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is currently on a mission that will make it travel through the main asteroid belt and out to the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids, small bodies that orbit the Sun.

According to the data collected by these technological marvels, some asteroids can even be mined for precious metals and even water. Asteroids also hold clues to the formation and evolution Earth over millions of years. Some theories even suggest that asteroids brought water to Earth and sparked life here.