5 Asteroid To Skim Past Earth This Week, 2 The Size Of Airplane: NASA
Asteroids are left over from the formation of our solar system
Five asteroids, one as large as a house and two each the size of an aeroplane, are set to skim past Earth beginning Wednesday, according to NASA’s Asteroid Watch dashboard.
However, these asteroids aren’t expected to threaten the planet, the American space agency said. One asteroid the size of a house, three the size of a plane and one asteroid the size of a bus will zoom in close to the Earth between September 6 and September 12.
According to NASA, the house-sized asteroid, called JA5, will pass by the planet on September 6. The space agency said that it will pass with 3.17 million miles of Earth, and was first observed in 2021. The size of the asteroid is about 59 feet.
Two asteroids will skim past Earth on September 8 including QC5, which has been compared to a plane and will be about 79 feet in size, and the other, named GE, is about the size of a bus, measuring in at approximately 26 feet in size.
The second aeroplane-sized asteroid, QF6, will pass Earth on September 10 and it measures about 68 feet in size. This asteroid will come the closest to the planet, travelling about 1.65 million miles from Earth, reported CBS News.
The fifth asteroid to fly by Earth will also be the size of a bus. It will pass on September 12. The asteroid measures about 25 feet in size and it will be about 2,620,000 miles from Earth.
Notably, NASA’s dashboard tracks asteroids and comets that will make relatively close approaches to Earth. The dashboard displays the date of the closest approach, approximate object diameter, relative size and distance from Earth for each encounter. It tracks asteroids that are within 7.5 million kilometres of Earth.
Some 30,000 asteroids of all sizes — including more than 850 larger than a kilometre wide — have been catalogued in the vicinity of the Earth, earning them the label “Near Earth Objects” (NEOs). None of them threatens the Earth for the next 100 years.
According to NASA, asteroids are left over from the formation of our solar system. Our solar system began about 4.6 billion years ago when a big cloud of gas and dust collapsed. When this happened, most of the material fell to the centre of the cloud and formed the sun. Some of the condensing dust in the cloud became planets.
