NASA has announced that an asteroid the size of a plane is on course to pass by planet Earth next week. While news of the huge rock’s approach has been hitting headlines, NASA experts are keen to clarify that the event will be ‘more routine than remarkable’.
Officially known as 2025 OW, the asteroid is reportedly 220 feet big. According to NASA’s schedule, it will pass Earth on Monday, July 28, approaching with 390k miles to spare. You can check out NASA’s projection of the large space rock online.
NASA says this is about 1.6 times the normal distance to the moon. The average distance between Earth and the moon is about 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers). 2025 OW is moving at a speed of 46,908 miles per hour, which, although it may sound incredibly fast, is completely normal and shouldn’t be anything to be concerned about.
Speaking to ABC News, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory media relations specialist Ian O’Neill said: “This is very routine. If there was a threat, you would hear from us. We would always put out alerts on our planetary defence blog.”
Fellow NASA expert, Davide Farnocchia, of the space centre’s Near-Earth Object Studies, described the approaching asteroid as essentially ‘just another day at the office’. He said: “Close approaches happen all the time, it’s just part of the fabric of the solar system.”
His team typically monitors multiple asteroids that pass by Earth each week. Although 2025 OW is significant enough to attract the attention of NASA scientists, its well-known orbit indicates that it is not a threat.
“We have a precise understanding of its trajectory,” O’Neill said. “We will likely know its path for the next century.”
For space fans eager to see 2025 OW, Farnocchia says that it won’t be visible through binoculars. However, he highlights a more thrilling event on the horizon: the approach of asteroid Apophis in 2029.
A statement on NASA’s website reads: “Near-Earth asteroid Apophis is a potentially hazardous asteroid that will safely pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029. It will come about 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from our planet’s surface — closer than the distance of many satellites in geosynchronous orbit (about 22,236 miles, or 36,000 kilometers, in altitude).”
When Apophis was first identified in more than 20 years ago, it seemed that this asteroid might collide with Earth in the next few decades. Apophis was found on June 19, 2004, by astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory located in Tucson, Arizona.
Astronomers monitored the asteroid diligently, and currently, NASA is assured that there is no threat of Apophis hitting our planet for at least the next century. NASA has also redirected a spacecraft to examine Apophis during its nearest approach to Earth in April 2029.
What are near-earth objects?
Near-earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them to within 120 million miles (195 million kilometres) of the Sun, which means they can circulate through the Earth’s orbital neighbourhood. Most near-Earth objects are asteroids that range in size from about 10 feet (a few meters) to nearly 25 miles (40 kilometers) across.
NASA says: “The orbit of each object is computed by finding the elliptical path through space that best fits all the available observations, which often span many orbits over many years or decades. As more observations are made, the accuracy of an object’s orbit improves dramatically, and it becomes possible to predict where an object will be years or even decades into the future – and whether it could come close to Earth.”
Where can I find more information?
For more information about the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies and to access close approach and impact-risk data for all known near-Earth objects, see: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/. To learn more about the Planetary Defense Coordination Office and NASA’s planetary defence strategy, go to: https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/overview. For asteroid and comet news and updates, follow @AsteroidWatch on Twitter.