Closer than the Moon: 3 giant asteroids will whizz by Earth on Wednesday
July 24, 2019
FILE PHOTO © AFP / European Southern Observatory Handout
Three massive asteroids are expected to pass by Earth today, with one of the approaching space rocks flying closer to our planet than the Moon, NASA has warned.
Estimated at 360 feet wide, asteroid 2015 HM10 is expected to fly past our planet on Wednesday, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
The next asteroid, 2019 OD, will be only 222,160 miles from Earth on July 24 – meaning that it will be closer to us than the Moon. A final one, 2019 OE, will trail 2019 OD but is much smaller in size and will be traveling at a much more modest speed. While 2019 OD’s relatively close approach to Earth is something of an anomaly, there’s no cause for alarm.
NASA discovers an average of 30 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) every week – and the chances of a large NEO colliding with Earth is astronomically small. In June, a “potentially hazardous”asteroid flew by Earth at a distance of 4.2 million miles. A month earlier, an asteroid so large that it had its own moon came hurtling towards Earth – but never got within five million miles of us.
https://www.rt.com/news/464917-asteroid-earth-moon-nasa-space/
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