NASA confirmed that Asteroid 2012 TT5 will fly by Earth today. However, those of you who are worried that this could signal the end of mankind as we know it can rest easy, because it’s going to miss us by five million miles.
Obviously, in space terms, that’s not too much. But, in human terms, that’s still quite a distance away. NASA’s Asteroid Watch, who “detect, track & characterize potentially hazardous asteroids,” tweeted out confirmation of the giant asteroid skimming pass the Earth at some point on Thursday 24 September.
Asteroid 2012 TT5 will safely pass Earth tomorrow by about 5 million miles/8 million km or 21.5 LD (lunar distances). It poses no threat.
— Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) September 23, 2015
However, conspiracy theorists were quick to point out that the above tweet was released just a few weeks after NASA completely dismissed rumors that any asteroids were coming close to the planet.
The Blood Moon Prophecy claimed earlier this month that an asteroid would collide with Earth on September 28. This prediction was made by Rev Efraid Rodriguez, who explained how he’d seen a vision of the space rock “entering the airspace of the town of Arecibo in Puerto Rico, striking the sea between the island of Mona and Mayaguez and triggering a magnitude 12 earthquake.”
Because of his remarks, his followers and members of the small Christian group soon took to the world wide web to warn people of the impending end for planet Earth.
They even began to use passages from the Bible to re-enforce the collision, highlighting part of Act 2:20, which reads, “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”
However, NASA always insisted that there are no asteroids on a collision course with planet Earth, with their spokesperson responding to this apocalyptic threats by stating, via the Daily Star , “NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small.”
They then reassuringly added, “In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years.”
There have also been previous reports that five other meteors have had, or will have, “close approaches” near Earth during the month of September, while the Daily Express have insisted that there are three asteroids that could potentially hit earth in the near future and cause mass devastation.
[Image via Festa /Shutterstock]
