A house-sized asteroid, three airplane-sized asteroids and a bus-sized planet will pass close to Earth from September 6 to 12, according to NASA’s Asteroid Watch asteroid and comet tracking system.
NASA used a spacecraft to test redirecting the asteroid Dimorphos last September. Photo: NASA
NASA said the asteroid, named JA5, flew by 5.1 million km from Earth on September 6. About the size of a house, JAS was first discovered in 2021, measuring about 17.9 meters long.
On September 8, two asteroids QC5 and GE will pass close to Earth at a distance of 4 million km and 5.7 million km. According to NASA data, QC5 is about 25 meters long (about as long as an airplane) and was discovered this year, while GE is 7.9 meters in size and was discovered in 2022.
According to NASA, two other plane-sized asteroids are expected to fly past Earth on September 10. Specifically, asteroid QF6 is 2.6 million km away from Earth and has a size of 20.7 meters while QE8 is 1.5 million km away from Earth and has a size of 51.8 meters. Both asteroids were discovered this year.
According to NASA, the average distance between the Moon and Earth is 384,633 km. Asteroids less than 150 meters in size do not pose a threat to Earth despite revolving around the blue planet within a radius of 7.4 million km.
theo ABC NewsIn March, an asteroid with an estimated size of 42.6–94.4 meters passed near Earth. NASA says that asteroids of this size pass near the Earth only once in a decade.
NASA has discovered more than 32,000 near-Earth asteroids as of August 31. Of these, 853 asteroids are larger than 1 km and 10,541 are larger than 140 meters. According to NASA, in the last 30 days, 3 asteroids have flown closer to Earth than the Moon and in the last 365 days, 10 asteroids have flown closer to Earth than the Moon.
