Car-sized asteroid comes eerily close to Earth, much closer than even the Moon
Image of asteroid GJ2 in its orbit.
Scientists spotted a massive, car-sized asteroid two days before it had an extremely close shave with Earth on Thursday (April 11).
To everyone's relief, the 9.4-foot space rock, although came very close to Earth, made a harmless pass by the planet.
The newly-discovered asteroid 2024 GJ2 is around the size of a car and after it was spotted by astronomers they calculated that the space rock would pass by Earth at a mere distance of 19.3 thousand kilometres from Earth.
This is just three per cent of the distance between the Moon and the Earth. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), 2024 GJ2 measures between 2.5 and 5 metres (8.2 and 16 feet).
Its size means that it is an asteroid with a weight class which would have burned up in the atmosphere of the Earth if its orbit intersected with ours more directly.
As per the astronomers, the asteroid made its closest approach at 2:28:42 p.m. EDT, when it was at a distance of 12,298 kilometres from Earth on Thursday (April 11).
The asteroid will not returntill 2093, as per the near-Earth Objects Coordination Centre of the ESA. However, at that time, the asteroid will not fly as close as it did this time.
In 2093, asteroid GJ2 is expected to fly as close as 205,947 kilometres from us, which is 10 times farther than the distance at which it flew this time.
Around 35,000 near-Earth asteroids have been catalogued by NASA to date, although very few of them threatenour planet.
What are asteroids and how does NASA track them?
As per the scientists, asteroids are space rocks and some of them are also made of metal and orbit around the Sun.
Some asteroids are tiny and some are as huge as boulders. The asteroids can also fly even hundreds of kilometres across.
These asteroids have remained preserved in the solar system from the time it came into existence some 4.6 billion years ago.
The asteroids can also cause massive damage and hence, the space agencies track them. A range of instruments are used by the US space agency NASA to track the asteroids.
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NASA has observatories which are equipped with powerful telescopes that are capable of scanning the skies from Earth.
NASA has these observatories at different places across the world such as Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii and Lowell Observatory in Arizona.
Similar observatories have also been opened by NASA in space to better understand the asteroids' trajectories properly.
(With inputs from agencies)