Asteroid today, as big as an aeroplane, just passed very close to Earth, NASA has revealed.
A dangerous asteroid today, dubbed as Asteroid 2022 OX3, just passed close to Earth. NASA had earlier revealed that the asteroid would be coming very close to Earth on August 2. The asteroid is as big as an aeroplane, which is around 95 feet. This near-Earth object that belongs to the Apollo group. According to Sky.org, it is at a maximum distance of 380 million kilometers away from the Sun. On the other hand, its distance from the Earth was just 2.74 million kilometers, equivalent to 0.02 astronomical units. An astronomical unit (AU, or au) is basically a unit of length equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun, i.e, 149,597,870.7 km (92,955,807.3 miles).
“The asteroid 2022 OX3 flew past Earth on August 02 at 18:45 at a distance of 2.74 million kilometers at a speed of 16 kilometers per second,” says the report. Although it doesn’t pose any threat to our planet, it is still classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid.
Nasa’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office monitors the sky with telescopes and keeps a track of upcoming flybys and the agency’s Small-Body Database to get more information about these space rocks.
This is not the first time that a giant space rock has made its close pass to earth. A few weeks back, Asteroid Asteroid 467460 (2006 JF42), passed by our planet on May 9. Earlier on April 28, Asteroid 418135 (2008 AG33), passed by our planet.
Scientists have become more adept at finding potentially hazardous asteroids with the advancements in Telescope technology. As per a previous report, more than 750,000 asteroids have been discovered to date out of which over 27,000 are near-Earth asteroids.