Asteroid flies by Earth at an eerily close distance nearer than the moon

A car-sized asteroid had a close shave with Earth on Tuesday morning (May 14), two days after the astronomers discovered it.

Theasteroid2024 JN16 was nearly the size of a car, less than 15 feet (4 metres) wide. The asteroid did not hit Earth, however, it came as close as 11,500 miles (18,500 kilometres) from the surface of our planet when it zipped by at 5:50 am EDT (0950 GMT) on Tuesday (May 14), as per The Virtual Telescope Project.

Amateur astronomerGennadiy Borisovdiscovered asteroid 2024 JN16two days ago with the use of the MARGO Observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea.The space rock is part of the Apollo asteroid group whose orbit intersects with Earth's orbit.

TheChelyabinsk meteor, which was as big as a six-storey building and broke upinto pieces over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 leading to a blast stronger than a nuclear explosion, was a famous asteroid from this group.

Asteroid reaches inside the moon's orbit

The orbits of such cosmic objects increase the risk of them colliding with a planet or other asteroids. As per astronomers, such asteroids survive for fairly short periods like 10 million years in oursolar system.

When it came close to Earth, 2024 JN16 was within the moon's orbitand half as distant as the geostationary satellites from Earth. These shells of geostationary satellites rotate at an altitude of 22,236 miles (35,785 km).

Watch:Asian continent bears brunt of heatwave

Since it came so close to Earth, the asteroid shined at magnitude 13 at its brightest and hence, was visible to telescopes.

The asteroid is presently more than 186,400 miles (300,000 kilometres) from Earth and is located in the constellation Serpens. However, one can only see it using long-exposure photography.

More than 40 asteroids have been found by astronomers whose paths came closer to Earth than the moon's orbit, as per theWatchers.

(With inputs from agencies)