Earth is set to witness a series of asteroid flypasts in the week starting 29 January. According to news media reports, of the five asteroids likely to brush past Earth, one will be the size of a “FIFA-accredited stadium“. The largest of the five, Asteroid 2008 OS7, was first spotted in 2008 by NASA. It will zoom past Earth on 2 February 2024, at a distance of 1.77 million miles, which is relatively close in cosmic terms.
But 2008 OS7 is not the only space rock that will fly by our planet this week. Four other asteroids, ranging from the size of a house to the size of a building, will also make their appearances.
Meanwhile, Japan‘s space agency said Thursday that its first lunar mission hit the tiny patch of the moon’s surface it was aiming for, in a successful demonstration of its pinpoint landing system — although the probe appears to be lying upside-down.
When will these asteroids pass the Earth?
On Sunday, Asteroid 2024 AU4, which is about 260 feet wide, will pass by Earth at a safe distance of 3.92 million miles. On Tuesday, another asteroid, 2007 EG, which is roughly the size of an airplane, will come a bit closer, at 3.8 million miles.
On Thursday, two more asteroids will visit us: Asteroid 2024 BY, which is around the size of a house, will whizz by at 1.57 million miles, and Asteroid 2003 BM4, which is also airplane-sized, will sail by at 2.06 million miles.
To put these distances in perspective, the average distance between the Earth and the moon is about 239,000 miles, and the distance between the Earth and the Sun is about 93 million miles, according to NASA.
NASA says that most of the near-Earth objects (NEOs) have orbits that do not bring them too close to Earth, and therefore do not pose any risk of impact. However, some of them, called potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), are large enough and close enough to warrant more attention.
NASA defines PHAs as asteroids and comets that are larger than 500 feet and that can come within 4.7 million miles of Earth.
One such PHA is Apophis, the so-called ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid, which is a massive rock measuring about 370 yards across.
In December, NASA launched OSIRIS-APEX to study Apophis, which is expected to fly by Earth at a stunningly close distance of 20,000 miles in 2029. NASA says that this is the closest an asteroid of this size has ever come to Earth since “the dawn of record history.”
The article originally appeared on Mint.
