AURORA NEWS – A massive asteroid nearly the size of London’s iconic Big Ben clock tower will come within 173,000 km of Earth this Saturday. It is twice as close as the moon, which orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km.
According to the Daily Mail, the asteroid named ‘2023 DZ2’ is currently estimated to be 93 m long, while Big Ben is 96 m high. Asteroid 2023 DZ2 is three times larger than the Chelyabinsk asteroid that crashed into Russia in 2013, sending shock waves twice around the world.
It is estimated that the asteroid 2023 DZ2 will be closest to Earth on Saturday, at 19:51 GMT with a speed of 28,044 kilometers per hour.
The United States Space Agency, NASA said, an object of this size that passes so close to Earth occurs only once in a decade.
The US space agency’s Asteroid Monitoring Team said on Twitter that it is working with the International Asteroid Alert Network to take this close approach to learn as much as possible about 2023 DZ2 in the shortest period of time.
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This asteroid was discovered on February 27, 2023 by scientists working with the European Near Earth Asteroid Research project.
They observed it using the Isaac Newton Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands.
At that time the asteroid was 16 million km from Earth, and takes about 3.16 years to orbit the sun.
But after passing by Earth this weekend and being hit by its gravity, its orbital period will be reduced to about 3.01 years.
Asteroid 2023 DZ3 comparison with Big Ben Clock in London
2023 DZ2 is an Apollo asteroid, meaning it crosses Earth’s orbit like the asteroid named ‘Apollo’ in 1862, which was first observed doing this.
While it is not known exactly where they come from, most near-Earth asteroids originate in the ‘main’ asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
NASA’s Office of Planetary Defense Coordination says that ‘most near-Earth asteroids originate in the interior of the main belt where over tens of millions of years, their orbits are altered by the gravitational influence of Jupiter and Mars and some collide with each other.
