The meteorite is as big as a 10-storey building flying close to the earth

Astronomers reported that an asteroid the size of a 10-storey building has just passed through the globe.

Illustration of a meteorite flying across Earth.Photo: howstuffworks.com.

The meteorite was named 2009 DD45 with a diameter of about 21 to 47 meters, flying over our planet at 13h44 on 2/3 in GMT (6h44 in Hanoi time). The distance between it and the earth is approximately 72,000 km, about one fifth of the distance between the globe and the moon.

Scientists from Siding Spring Survey, a program to find objects near Earth in Australia, see it from February 29. Then the Asteroid Center of the International Astronomical Society confirmed the presence of meteorites and placed it in solar system objects.

According to the data of the Asteroid Center, before 2009 DD45 appeared, the object that flew closest to the earth was a meteorite with a diameter of about 6 meters. It is about 6,500 km from our planet in March 2004.

In 1908, a meteorite size equivalent to 2009 DD45 exploded in the sky of Siberia in Russia. With the destructive power of 1,000 atomic bombs that the US threw in Hiroshima (Japan) in 1945, it fell 80 million trees in an area of ​​2,000 square kilometers near the Tunguska River.

Many experts claim that meteorite size is approximately 2009 DD45 can create the equivalent of 15 million tons of TNT if they hit the green planet. However, the level of destruction of 2009 DD45 depends on the type of material that makes it and the angle between its flight path and the ground.