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Three asteroids are approaching our planet today (March 23), but don’t worry; small rocks pose no threat as they drift towards Earth, passing closer than the average distance between our planet and the moon.
The largest of the three space rocks, a house-sized asteroid called 2021 FH, passed through Earth today at about 12:52 a.m. EDT (1652 GMT) from a distance of about 234,870 kilometers (145,940 miles) ), or 0.61 times the average Earth. -a distance from the moon. NASA estimates that the diameter of the asteroid is between 12 and 27 meters (39 feet and 89 feet), which is about the length of a semi-truck.
Details of its orbit have been posted online by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Small Body Database Navigator, a database of all known little worlds in our solar system. The Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union also sent out a circular to the community containing observations from various astronomers around the world, including updated orbital elements.
Video: 3 asteroids zoom closer than the moon in less than 24 hours
Small asteroids and comets pass through Earth regularly, and in fact, it’s not the only small world that has passed our planet this week. The newly discovered FO1 2021, now cataloged by JPL, was safely zoomed in by Earth on Monday, March 22 at 11:05 p.m. EDT (Tuesday, March 23 at 12:05 a.m. GMT).
The New World was a bit smaller – about 11 feet to 25 feet (3.4 to 7.6 meters) wide. On its closest approach, FO1 2021 was approximately 321,640 kilometers, or 0.84 times the average Earth-Moon distance. (For comparison, the distance from the moon to our planet averages about 239,000 miles, or 384,000 km.)
Related: Biggest asteroid to visit Earth in 2021 zoomed in unusually fast
And tonight at 6:35 p.m. EDT (10:35 p.m. GMT), another asteroid called 2021 FP2 is expected to fly close to Earth, passing within 323,120 km of our planet – a little further than 2021 FO1. NASA’s Minor Planet Center lists a dozen more near-Earth asteroids that will be hovering over our planet this week, but none will be closer than the moon.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and a suite of partners around the world are monitoring small asteroids through telescopic observations, and in decades of observations by scientists, no imminent problems have yet been found. Earlier this month, the infamous asteroid Apophis flew over our planet; Scientists have ruled out any threat to our world from Apophis in 2029.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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