Space Asteroid
(Picture: Southwest Research Institute)Several massive asteroids are expected to zoom around near Earth in the next few weeks, including one nearly the size of the Empire State Building.
According to data from NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, a few will pass relatively close to the Earth in the coming weeks, but relatively close is still - thankfully- far away enough to not cause any problems.
“Astronomically, these are coming close to the Earth. But in human terms, they are millions of miles away and can get no closer than millions of miles away,” Paul Chodas, the director of the CNEOS at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, told ABC News.
One asteroid, labelled Asteroid 2021 TJ15, was expected pass the Earth at the same distance at the moon, or 238,854 miles away, yesterday.
Meanwhile, Asteroid 2004 UE - which will be up to 1,246 feet, nearly the size of the Empire State Building - is expected to fly past 2.6 million miles from Earth on 13 November.
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“So that is the size of a small building. That’s approaching a medium size. But that’s 11 lunar distances approaching sequence, it cannot get any closer than 11.11 lunar distances,” Chodas said.
Indeed, the chances of a massive asteroid hitting the planet are extremely rare, Chodas said.
“It’s simply the fact that there are very fewer medium- and large-size asteroids that come near the Earth to begin with,” he said.
“There are comparatively few large asteroids. The largest near-Earth asteroid is something like 10 kilometers. But there’s only one or two of those.”
Phew.
