Asteroids are generally harmless to Earth. An asteroid impact event that causes casualties or damage is something that is very rare. But there is no harm in knowing the type of asteroid that is the most dangerous.
Every day, many asteroids are heading to Earth without being noticed by humans. The reason is, about 90% of them do not reach Earth, they have burned first in the atmosphere.
"Earth is bombarded every day with more than 100,000 tons of dust and sand-sized particles. It's a very small space rock, it never gets near the troposphere. But about once a year, an asteroid the size of a car crashes into Earth's atmosphere, creating a fireball and burning up before hitting the surface. "said NASA.
Asteroids measuring less than 25 meters will almost certainly burn before entering the atmosphere so the potential hazard is minimal.
"If a meteor larger than 25 meters and less than 1 kilometer hits the Earth, it may just create local damage in the impact area," NASA said, quoted by the Hindustan Times.
Now, this type of asteroid is included in the most dangerous, which is 1 to 2 kilometers in size. The potential for damage can be large, although not to the point of destroying the entire planet. Roughly the size of the Golden Gate bridge.
To actually inflict any damage, the asteroid must be about 10 kilometers across. The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago was about 9.6 kilometers in size.
Luckily for now and also quite far in the future, NASA ensures that in a fairly long time it is not observed that there is an asteroid large enough on the path to crashing into Earth and endangering living things.
"We are tracking many asteroids, but at the same time, there is no currently known threat to Earth. No asteroid that we know of presents a significant threat to Earth," said Kelly Fast of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office recently. .