An asteroid the size of a sports stadium is hurtling toward Earth this week and will be joined by four more near misses, with the largest expected to pass less than 2 million miles from the Blue Planet on Friday.
Asteroid 2008 OS7 is about 890 feet in diameter, according to NASA, and will make its closest approach to Earth on February 2, when the space rock, first discovered in 2008, is expected to miss us by 1.77 million miles.
Although there was no risk of impact, its distance still cut it close enough to land it on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Asteroid Watch website, which tracks the asteroid’s next five approaches.
The near miss of 2008 OS7 will end a week that will see another asteroid volley pass too close for comfort to the world as we know it.
On Sunday, 2024 AU4, a “building-sized” asteroid about 260 feet in diameter, will miss Earth by about 3.92 million miles at its closest point.
Then on Tuesday, 2007 EG will pass a little closer, an “airplane-sized” asteroid expected to sail by at a distance of about 3.8 million miles.
Five asteroids are expected to pass within less than 2 million miles of Earth on Friday. Getty Images/iStockphoto
The asteroid expected to make this week’s closest call is on Thursday, when Asteroid 2024 BY, which NASA describes as about the size of a house, will come within 1.57 million miles.
On the same day, another airplane-sized asteroid, 2003 BM4, about 120 feet in diameter, will cruise by at a distance of 2.06 million miles.
By comparison, the average distance from Earth to the moon is about 239,000 miles, according to NASA. The Sun is about 93 million miles from Earth.
According to NASA, “The majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that do not bring them very close to Earth, and therefore do not pose an impact risk, but a small fraction of them – called potentially dangerous asteroids – require more attention.”
![Solar system diagram showing 5 asteroids, the largest the size of a sports stadium, passing Earth this week. [Filename: 5-asteroids-including-one-size-75619165]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/01/5-asteroids-including-one-size-75619165.jpg?w=1024)
The largest of the five asteroids is about the size of a sports stadium. NASA
NASA’s definition of “potentially hazardous objects” (PHO) includes asteroids and comets larger than 500 feet that are predicted to be within 4.7 million miles of Earth.
In December, NASA launched OSIRIS-APEX to study Apophis, the so-called “God of Chaos” asteroid, a large rock measuring about 370 yards, which is expected to fly by the planet at an unexpected distance of 20,000 miles in 2029.
According to NASA, an asteroid this close to Earth “hasn’t happened since the beginning of recorded history.”
The Post reached out to NASA for comment but did not immediately hear back.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
