A building-sized asteroid will zoom by Earth Saturday, while another asteroid twice its size will make an even closer approach Monday, with NASA keeping an eye on the second asteroid due to its size and how close it will be to Earth—though the threat level is low.
Planet Earth and big asteroid in the space.
getty
Key Takeaways
- A 290-foot asteroid is expected to pass by Earth Saturday, coming within 3.1 million miles of the planet—about 13 times further than the moon—according to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- The asteroid, named 2022 BF2, orbits the Earth about every three years, and its next close approach is predicted to happen on Aug. 8, 2153.
- A second asteroid, 2024 JV33, is twice the size of 2022 BF2—coming in at 620 feet—and passes by Earth on Monday, making an even closer approach at 2.85 million miles.
- This will be 2024 JV33’s first close approach since being discovered in May, though scientists estimate it’s made close approaches since at least 1919, and its next close approach is predicted to happen on Aug. 24, 2026.
- NASA labels objects larger than 492 feet that come within 4.6 million miles of Earth “potentially hazardous objects,” so scientists are monitoring 2024 JV33 for potential danger even though they don’t expect the asteroid to pose a threat.
What Time Will The Asteroids Pass Earth?
Asteroid 2022 BF2 is expected to pass us around 1:23 p.m. AEST on Sunday. Asteroid 2024 JV33 is expected to pass by on Monday around 8:07 p.m. AEST.
How Can I See The Asteroids?
Because of the distance, both asteroids may be invisible to the naked eye. However, NASA offers a virtual asteroid tracker to watch where in the solar system asteroids are in real time.
Big Number
Over 1.3 million. That’s how many asteroids NASA estimates are in the solar system.
Key Background
Asteroids are rocky objects that orbit the sun like planets, though they’re much smaller, according to NASA. They’re made up of the leftover remnants from when the solar system formed around 4.6 billion years ago. 2022 BF2 and 2024 JV33 are two of 18,232 Apollo-classed asteroids, which are asteroids that can cross into Earth’s orbit. NASA has taken the threat of an asteroid coming into contact with Earth more seriously in recent years.
In 2022, it carried out its first Double Asteroid Deflection Test, which changed an asteroid’s orbit. NASA launched a spacecraft into space and hit the asteroid, shortening its orbit by 32 minutes. NASA also sent the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on a mission to an asteroid near Earth called Bennu in order to study it.
The spacecraft collected samples of the asteroid and dropped them off on Earth in September 2023, though the findings haven’t been made public yet. Scientists believe Bennu has a chance to collide with Earth in 2182, so that’s why research is being conducted on the asteroid. Scientists with the OSIRIS-REx mission believe Bennu has a one-in-2,700 chance of hitting a Texas-sized portion of Earth in 2182, according to a 2023 paper published in Icarus.
This article was originally published on forbes.com.
