A Bus-Sized Asteroid is Currently Approaching Earth
Because a collision with an incoming asteroids might cause a catastrophic loss of human life, asteroids constantly make headlines. This time, NASA experts in the United States have issued a warning regarding an asteroid the size of a bus that is predicted to reach its closest approach to Earth today.
The 39-foot bus-sized asteroid 2023 JL1 will fly by Earth at a distance of 2,490,000 kilometers, according to NASA’s Asteroid Watch page. 26,316 km/hr is the speed at which it is moving.
Additionally, NASA has issued advisories for the asteroids 2023 JO1 and 2023 JD2. The first object, which is the size of a house (46 feet), will pass Earth at a distance of 2,990,000 km, while the second object, which is the size of an airplane (200 feet), will pass Earth at a distance of 5,630,000 km.
In particular, asteroids and comets that will pass quite near to Earth are monitored by NASA‘s dashboard. The dashboard shows each encounter’s closest approach date, approximate object diameter, relative size, and separation from Earth. It monitors asteroids that are 7.5 million kilometers or less away from Earth.
The term “Near Earth Objects” (NEOs) refers to the about 30,000 asteroids of all sizes, including more than 850 that are more than one kilometer wide, that have been identified in the area around the Earth. For the next 100 years, none of them pose a hazard to the Earth.
Asteroids are a byproduct of the birth of our solar system, claims NASA. When a large cloud of gas and dust imploded, our solar system came into being some 4.6 billion years ago. When this occurred, the majority of the material fell to the cloud’s center and created the sun. In the cloud, some of the dust that was condensing became planets.
Asteroids differ in size and form from one another. No two asteroids are identical because they develop in various places at various distances from the sun. Asteroids have ragged and erratic forms and are not ubiquitous like planets. The majority of asteroids are composed of various types of rocks, although some also include clays or metals like nickel and iron.
