A massive asteroid will zip past Earth next week. Here's how to spot it.
A massive asteroid will zip past Earth next week. Here's how to spot it.
An enormous asteroid more massive than two Empire State Buildings is heading our way, but unlike the so-called planet-killer comet in the recent movie "Don't Look Up," this space rock will zoom harmlessly past Earth.
Provided by Live Science Very large space rocks that fly within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth's solar orbit are known as potentially hazardous asteroids.
The stony asteroid, known as (7482) 1994 PC1, will pass at its closest on Jan. 18 at 4:51 p.m. EST (2151 GMT), traveling at 43,754 mph (70,415 km/h) and hurtling past Earth at a distance of 0.01324 astronomical units — 1.2 million miles ( nearly 2 million kilometers), according to NASA JPL-Caltech's Solar System Dynamics (SSD).
That may sound like a safe distance — and it is! But by cosmic standards, it's close for such a large object. Asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 measures about 3,609 feet (1,100 meters) long, and even though there's no danger of a collision with Earth, NASA classifies the asteroid as a potentially hazardous object. This term describes asteroids that measure over 460 feet (140 m) long and have orbits that carry them within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km) of Earth's orbit around the sun, according to NASA's Asteroid Watch.
The approaching asteroid is also part of a larger category of space rocks known as near-Earth objects (NEOs), which pass within about 30 million miles (50 million km) of Earth's orbital path. NASA's NEO Observations Program finds, identifies and characterizes these objects; survey telescopes have found approximately 28,000 NEOs that measure at least 460 feet in diameter, and about 3,000 new sightings are added each year, according to the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
"But as larger and more advanced survey telescopes turbocharge the search over the next few years, a rapid uptick in discoveries is expected," according to the CNEOS.
Once observers detect a near-Earth asteroid or comet, scientists analyze the object's orbit to assess how close it might come to Earth. Though many thousands of asteroids and comets are currently zipping around the solar system, the objects in the CNEOS' database pose no serious impact threats for the next 100 years or more, NASA says.
Astronomer Robert H. McNaught was the first to spot asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1, on Aug. 9, 1994. Other scientists then tracked its previous trips through our cosmic neighborhood by using McNaught's observations to calculate the asteroid's orbital path, speed and trajectory. They found that the asteroid orbits the sun once every 572 days, and they detected the visitor in telescope images going all the way back to 1974, according to EarthSky. And on Jan. 18, if visibility is good, the asteroid will be bright enough to be seen in a dark-sky location at night with a backyard telescope, EarthSky reported.
Close as the asteroid may be on Jan. 18, it came much closer on Jan. 17, 1933. That year, the space rock sailed past Earth at a distance of about 699,000 miles (1.1 million km), and it won't come that close to us again until 2105, according to SSD.
Originally published on Live Science.Reference: Live Science: Mindy Weisberger
Articles - Latest
- FROM WHITE MISCHIEF TO BILL & TED, JOSS ACKLAND WAS AN ACTOR OF RARE POISE, RANGE AND PATHOS
- FOUNTAINS OF DIAMONDS THAT ERUPT FROM EARTH'S CENTER ARE REVEALING THE LOST HISTORY OF SUPERCONTINENTS
- ANCIENT HUMANS USED CAVE IN SPAIN AS BURIAL SPOT FOR 4 MILLENNIA, 7,000 BONES REVEAL
- THE MOODY BLUES FOUNDER MIKE PINDER HAS DIED AGED 82
- GOLD POCKET WATCH FOUND IN TITANIC SOLD FOR RECORD-BREAKING PRICE
- 5 CATASTROPHIC MEGATHRUST EARTHQUAKES LED TO THE DEMISE OF THE PRE-AZTEC CITY OF TEOTIHUACAN, NEW STUDY SUGGESTS
- FRENCH PALME D’OR WINNER LAURENT CANTET DIES AGED 63
- Norman Lear obituary
- AN UNHOLY TRAFFIC: HOW THE SLAVE TRADE CONTINUED THROUGH THE US CIVIL WAR
- QUEEN CHARLOTTE WAS ‘PERSON OF COLOUR’, MUSEUM CLAIMS IN LGBT GUIDE
- JEANETTE WINTERSON: I DIDN’T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS… UNTIL I STARTED LIVING WITH THEM
- ANCIENT HUMAN ACTIVITY DISCOVERED IN KILOMETER-LONG LAVA CAVE
- DNA ANALYSIS SPANNING 9 GENERATIONS OF PEOPLE REVEALS MARRIAGE PRACTICES OF MYSTERIOUS WARRIOR CULTURE
- LOST CITIES HIDDEN FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS DISCOVERED UNDER FOREST
- LETTER: ALAN ARKIN OBITUARY
- ARCHAEOLOGISTS CRACK MYSTERY OF ANCIENT MAYA AFTER 7,000-YEAR-OLD REMAINS FOUND
- NEW JERSEY REP. DONALD PAYNE JR. DEAD AT 65
- WORLD'S TALLEST WOMAN' MARIA FELICIANA DOS SANTOS, 7FT3, DIES AGED 77
- UNDERWORLD DISCOVERY CHALLENGES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
- MUSLIM SOLDIER MEMORIAL FUND £1 MILLION TO IMPROVE RELATIONS AFTER ISLAMOPHOBIA ISSUES
- SCIENTISTS DISCOVER 1ST-OF-ITS-KIND CELL PART BORN FROM A SWALLOWED MICROBE
- NYC TIKTOK STAR EVA EVANS DIES AGED 29
- LADY GARDNER OF PARKES, CONSERVATIVE PEER WHO CHAMPIONED WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE EU AND UN – OBITUARY
Articles - Most Read
- Main
- Contact Us
- The science behind Ouija boards
- Cosmic Consciousness - What is Cosmic Consciousness-2
- Cosmic Consciousness-Introduction
- Cosmic Consciousness - Introduction-2
- MASSIVE 6.1 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE HITS NEW ZEALAND AS NATION STILL REELING FROM CYCLONE
- ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNRAVEL THE TRUTH OF APHRODITE, GODDESS OF LOVE, ON VALENTINE'S DAY
- The Human Condition-Thomas Keating
- Cosmic Consciousness First Words - 1V - 2
- Cosmic Consciousness First Words - V -
- Cosmic Consciousness V - 2
- Cosmic consciousness - First Words - IV
- Cosmic Consciousness - What is Cosmic Consciousness?
- Evolution and Devolution-Chapter 2
- The Human Condition - Thomas keating-3
- The Human Condition-2-Thomas Keating
- Drinking From The Mountain Stream - Milarepa
- Cosmic Consciousness-On the Plane of Self Consciousness
- The Human Condition - 4
- Cosmic Consciousness - 3 - On the Plane of Self Consciousness
- Evolution and Devolution-Chapter 1
- The Human Condition - 6
- Shakyamuni Buddha or India the 1st “Black Revolutionary Hero.”
- On the Plane of Self Consciousness - 2
- Milarepa's World
- The Human Condition - 5
- Milarepa's World-2
- The Buddhist System of Liberation
- On the Plane of Self Consciousness IV
- Contemplation and the Divine Therapy - 2
- The Buddhist System of Liberation - 2
- JERRY RAWLINGS, GHANAIAN STRONG MAN WHO CAME TO POWER IN A COUP BUT INTRODUCED DEMOCRACY – OBITUARY
- On the Plane of Self Consciousness IV - 2