A new photograph of an asteroid on its way to Earth appears to show it wearing a facemask.
1998 OR2 will fly by our pandemic-hit planet on April 29/30. It's a big one - between 1.5 and 4km across - and orbits the sun every 1344 days.
Astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico snapped a photo of it last week. In a Twitter post, they said not only are they wearing facemasks to avoid catching or spreading COVID-19, but 1998 OR2 is as well.
"#TeamRadar and the @NAICobservatory staff are taking the proper safety measures as we continue observations.
This week we have been observing near-Earth asteroid 1998 OR2, which looks like it's wearing a mask!"
The good news is that while classified as potentially hazardous, 1998 OR2 is also practising good social distancing - it'll miss the Earth by about 6 million kilometres. That's close by astronomical standards, but still 16 times further away than the moon.
If it did hit, the effect would be disastrous - Imperial College London's impact calculator suggesting it could leave a crater 49km wide.
Scientists are sure it won't hit the Earth anytime between now and 2197 - but its orbit is eccentric, so after that, all bets are off.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 200,000 people since January. Not a single person in history, that we know of, has been killed by an asteroid.
