NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said they are tracking five near-Earth objects that will pass near Earth this week.
Four of the near-Earth objects are minor and would represent a lesser threat to the world if they collided head-on. The fifth, on the other hand, is as big as the Washington Monument.
Here's How Big The Near-Earth Objects Are
Small near-Earth objects will approach the planet on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. These will pass within 1.9 million and 3.6 million miles of the planet, respectively. According to NASA, these asteroids are around the size of a plane and a home.
Meanwhile, the largest near-Earth object in the solar system will pass within 4.5 million miles of Earth on June 1. It is bigger than a conventional office structure at 620 feet. To compare, the Washington Monument is 555 feet tall and 5 and 1/8 inch wide. NASA says it will fly past Earth at a speed of roughly 40,000 mph. This is 20 times the speed of a rifle bullet.
In addition to the larger object, another smaller near-earth object will pass within 694,000 miles of the planet on June 1. The smaller of the two is roughly the size of a plane.
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NASA's Asteroid Watch dashboard keeps track of comets and near-Earth objects that will pass close to our planet. The date of the closest approach and the approximate size and distance from Earth are displayed on the dashboard.
NASA examines an asteroid's size and distance from Earth to assess whether it is potentially harmful.
WUSA9 said near-Earth objects are leftover rocks from our solar system's early development, roughly 4.6 billion years ago. There are currently 1,084,185 asteroids known to NASA.
Are These Near-Earth Objects Harmful?
In cosmic terms, the word "close" is a relative concept. The distance the rock will swing by Earth is expected to be roughly 4.5 million kilometers. While the distance between the Earth and the Moon is nearly 19 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, NASA nevertheless included the pass in its near approaches factsheet, Newsweek said.
According to Business Insider, NASA claims that none of these near-Earth objects, large or tiny, pose an urgent hazard. They're being tracked because they're either closer to Earth than 7.5 million kilometers or larger than 150 meters, which is 19.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
"No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet," the Center for Near-Earth object Studies said in a post on its website.
However, it did add that while the chances of our planet being hit by an asteroid are minimal, they are never zero.
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