NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) warns that a 2,400-feet (732-meter) asteroid has been spotted approaching Earth at a high velocity, and is expected to pass by the planet safely.
The asteroid named 349068 (2006 YT13), is a rare space rock because of its enormous size which is equivalent to four football fields. It comes just a few days after asteroid 2022 KY4 had a close flyby to Earth on July 17.
When Will the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Pass by Earth?
Asteroid 349068 (2006 YT13) will pass by Earth just before 11:00 pm on Tuesday, July 19, the U.S. Sun reported. It will pass at a considerably safe distance, albeit closer than most asteroids of its size.
The space rock is almost as tall as the tallest building in New York City's Central Park and was classified as "potentially hazardous" because its closest distance to Earth will be about 4.65 million miles (6.76 kilometers), but does not pose any direct threat to the planet.
The data from NASA-JPL says that an asteroid this size gets close to Earth once a year. Astronomers in NASA JPL first observed the asteroid in 2006 and calculated that the space rock has passed Earth 28 times already since 1900. Asteroid 349068 (2006 YT13) will once again pass by the planet this Tuesday night and in August 2025.
It is fast approaching Earth at a rate of over 50,000 miles per hour (80, 467 kilometers per hour). After this asteroid, another one will also come within 4 million miles of Earth on the afternoon of July 24. However, it is smaller than the upcoming asteroid.
About Asteroid 349068 (2006 YT13)
According to the website The Sky, the near-Earth object asteroid 349068 (2006 YT13) was discovered on Dec. 26, 2006. It takes 556 days for it to complete one revolution around the Sun. At aphelion, the asteroid is about 175 million miles (282 million kilometers) from Sun. But at its perihelion, it is 70 million miles (114 million kilometers) away.
Moreover, the asteroid is currently at 4.3 million miles (7.04 million kilometers) from Earth, equivalent to 0.05 astronomical units. It takes 23 seconds for light from the asteroid 349068 (2006 YT13) to travel and arrive on Earth.
It is currently on the east in the constellation of Orion at an altitude of 70 degrees above the horizon and will sink towards the horizon at around 3:13 pm.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
According to an article on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory website, astronomers have made it their mission to systemically assess the magnitude of the threat of a near-Earth object, especially as history taught humans that a massive asteroid caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction millions of years ago. Even small impactors possess enormous energy that could cause massive devastation.
NASA has supported a ground-based program to identify NEOs larger than a kilometer in diameter because these impactors would be globally devastating. Even a 100-meter size asteroid could cause explosions with billions of tons range that may destroy a whole country. Scientists estimate that there is a 1% chance that an impact will occur in the next century.
The observatory has the capacity for early detection and orbit determination to warn of the size of the asteroid, its size, cadence, and sensitivity.
RELATED ARTICLE: NASA Working On Stopping "City-Killer" Asteroids From Hitting Earth; How Prepared Is Humanity From Space Rocks?
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