Earth is all set to witness a series of close encounters with not one or two, but five asteroids set to fly by this week. One of them is as big as a football stadium.
As per the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) -- NASA's asteroid watch dashboard -- leading this stellar cast is the Asteroid 2008 OS7, which measures a staggering 890 feet (around 0.27 km) across. It was first spotted by NASA in 2008 and will zoom past Earth on Friday (February 2), at a distance of 1.77 million miles, which is not far in cosmic terms, according to reports.
The 2008 OS7 is not the only space rock that flies by Earth. There are four other asteroids too which vary in size from a house to a building.
On January 28, Asteroid 2024 AU4, which is about 260 feet wide, zoomed past Earth at a safe distance of 3.92 million miles.
Asteroid 2007 EG, which is roughly the size of an aeroplane, 130 feet (0.04 km), will come a bit closer to Earth at 3.8 million miles on January 30.
February 1 will see two more asteroids -- 2024 BY, a house-sized asteroid that will whizz by at 1.57 million miles, and 2003 BM4 which will fly by at 2.06 million miles and is almost equal to the size of an aircraft at 120 feet (0.04 km).
According to NASA, the average distance between Earth and the Moon is around 239,000 miles, while the average distance between Earth and the Sun is approximately 93 million miles.
The majority of the near-Earth objects (NEOs) do not pose a risk of impact since their orbits do not bring them close to Earth. But some of them — known as potentially hazardous asteroids or PHAs — are close enough and big enough to demand more attention.
PHAs are asteroids and comets, larger than 500 feet, that can come within 4.7 million miles of Earth. Apophis, the so-called ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid, is one such PHA that measures around 370 yards across.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
First Published: Jan 30, 2024 11:22 AM IST
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