A massive asteroid with its own lagging moon will pass through the Earth this weekend

FINAL FRONTIER – An asteroid nearly a mile and a half wide with its own moon should pass through the Earth this weekend, traveling at 60,000 km / h. The space rock, known as the 1999 KW4 asteroid, was discovered 20 years ago and is so big that it is orbited by a moon.

Saturday night, 1999 KW4 will get closer to Earth. It will be visible until May 27. As it carries a large moon, the asteroid is technically designated as a binary system.

According to NASA, a binary system is defined as two celestial objects close enough to go into orbit.

The Observatory of Las Cumbres describes 1999 KW4 as "slightly crushed at the poles and with a mountain ridge around the equator, which runs all around the asteroid. This ridge gives the primary an appearance similar to that of a walnut or a spinning top. "

According to NASA, the asteroid was discovered for the first time during the research study on near-Earth asteroids (LINEAR) conducted by the Lincoln laboratory in Socorro, New Mexico. The asteroid will not move closer to the ground until 2036.

The Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory ranked 1999 KW4 in 1999 as a "potentially dangerous asteroid" because it will move relatively close to Earth. Even in this case, the asteroid will only exceed 3.2 million miles of Earth, or about 13 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.