Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Approaching Eid this year, there is a giant asteroid that will streak near Earth.
NASA predicts an asteroid about 2 times the size of the Empire State Building will glide past Earth today, Thursday (28/4).
The asteroid is named 418135 (2008 AG33), and will penetrate Earth’s orbit at a speed of 37,400 km/h (23,300 mph).
At its closest point, an asteroid traveling at more than 30 times the speed of sound will be within about 3.2 million kilometers from Earth. This distance is approximately 8 times the average distance between Earth and the moon.
Although the distance sounded quite far, but by cosmic standards, the distance was actually only a stone’s throw away. This means that the distance of the asteroid that passes with the earth is quite close.
Fortunately, according to NASA, the asteroid is expected to glide past our planet without risk of impact Live ScienceThursday (28/4/2022).
NASA marks any space object within 193 million km of Earth as a “near-Earth object”. Then fast-moving objects within 7.5 million km as “potentially dangerous.”
Once an object is tagged, astronomers monitor it and look for deviations in its predicted trajectory that could put it on a collision course with Earth.
The asteroid that will be hurtling today may not be the largest space rock to slide past Earth. Because, there will be a larger asteroid that glides near Earth, namely asteroid 467460 (2006 JF42).
The asteroid is estimated to have a diameter of between 380 and 860 meters and is traveling at a speed of about 40,700 km/h when it passes Earth on May 9, 2022.
(Intan Rakhmayanti Dewi /dem)
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