This week, NASA has verified the presence of five asteroids approaching Earth in which one of them is identified as a 'potentially hazardous asteroid,' measuring roughly the dimensions of a football stadium.
Football Field-sized Celestial Visitor Passing By Earth
Asteroid 2008 OS7 boasts a diameter of approximately 890 feet, slightly smaller than Wembley Stadium's iconic arch, which spans 1,033 feet. It is scheduled to approach Earth at a distance of 1,770,000 miles on Friday afternoon, February 2, at 14:41 GMT. Reassuringly, Dr. Minjae Kim, a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick's Department of Physics, emphasizes that the asteroid will not enter Earth's atmosphere.
Dr. Kim categorizes asteroid 2008 OS7 as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)," given its small size and orbit intersecting with Earth's. The estimated diameter of the asteroid ranges from 0.221 to 0.494 kilometers, placing it in the category of a small to moderately-sized asteroid, akin to the size of a football field.
With millions of asteroids in the Solar System, approximately 2,350 have been classified as PHAs. Dr. Kim points out that the next significant approach by a PHA will be the asteroid 99942 Apophis on April 14, 2029.
Asteroid 2008 OS7 completes an orbit around the sun every 962 days, equivalent to 2.63 Earth years. Dr. Kim highlights the challenge of detecting asteroids, as they are generally too faint for current techniques and surveys, making them difficult to observe with the naked eye. He notes that only Pallas and Vesta, with diameters of about 500 km, have been visible to the naked eye so far.
Other Asteroids Expected To Pass By
This week, more asteroids are set to make close passes near Earth, varying in size from that of a plane to a house. The first, 2007 EG, sized like an airplane at 130 feet, will be the farthest, missing Earth by 3.8 million miles on January 30. The second, 2024 BY, comparable in size to a house at 62 feet, will fly by at 1.57 million miles on February 1.
The third, 2003 BM4, with an airplane-like size of about 120 feet, is set to miss the planet by just over 2 million miles on the same day as 2024 BY. The largest, 2008 OS7, boasting a whopping 890 feet, similar to a football stadium's size, will fly by on February 2, missing Earth by 1.7 million miles. The final asteroid, 2024 BP1, sized around 130 feet, will also fly by on February 2, with an estimated distance of 2.1 million miles.
While NASA assures there is no risk of impact from these asteroids, the agency's Asteroid Watch monitors the next five Earth approaches within 4.6 million miles. Objects larger than about 150 meters approaching Earth within this distance are termed potentially hazardous objects.
For context, the average distance between Earth and the moon is approximately 239,000 miles. Although the chance of these asteroids hitting Earth is extremely low, NASA acknowledges the ongoing risk of an asteroid collision, discovering around 30 new near-Earth objects (NEOs) weekly.
As of 2019, NASA had identified over 19,000 objects, but the NEO catalog remains incomplete, leaving the possibility of an unpredicted impact at any time. NASA notes that impacts of larger objects are expected to be less frequent on the scale of centuries to millennia.
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