An asteroid heading toward Earth and on track to arrive on Christmas Eve poses no threat at all, and is not even making its closest approach for another three years.
Dubbed 2003 SD220, the asteroid will pass by Earth on Christmas Eve at a distance more than two dozen times farther than the moon, Space.com reported. The asteroid is particularly large and sparked now unfounded reports that it would wreak havoc on our planet.
Phil Plait rounded up some of the craziest "doomsday" talk surrounding the asteroid in his Bad Astronomy blog for Slate and proceeded to dismiss it as nonsense.
"It really bugs me when these less-than-stellar sites talk about doom and gloom from near-passes of asteroids, for many reasons," he wrote. "One is simply that it's garbage, and it steams me when people abuse astronomy. Second is that it scares people; I get email and tagged on lots of social media from folks who hear about these objects and get worried. Scaring them for giggles (or for clicks) is just downright evil.
"And third, it diminishes the actual amazing nature of these objects. For example, observations of SD220 indicates it's an S-type asteroid, meaning silicaceous, or, in plain terms, stony. These generally orbit the Sun in the inner asteroid belt, outside of the orbit of Mars."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also assured the people of Earth they will not have to plan for the end times this Holiday season.
"There is no cause for concern over the upcoming flyby of asteroid 2003 SD220 this Christmas Eve," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies at JPL, said in a press release. "The closest this object will come to Santa and his eight tiny reindeer is about 28 times the distance between Earth and the moon."
