Asteroid larger than Big Ben’s tower to crash into Earth orbit tonight – world news

The asteroid, which has been referred to as 2021RL3, is measured to be close enough to be about 7 lunar distances (trips to the Moon and back)

As the British begin to prepare for bed tonight, an asteroid larger than Big Ben’s clock tower is about to crash into Earth orbit, traveling at an incredible speed of 50,000 mph.

The rock, designated 2021RL3, is between 160 and 360 feet wide, is expected to be within 1,804,450 miles of Earth, around 10:30 p.m. tonight.

For comparison, the Moon is located just 238,855 miles away.

The asteroid is measured to be close enough to be about 7 lunar distances (trips to the moon and back), according to the Daily Star.

If it made landfall, 2021RL3 would have a huge impact.

NASA is able to determine when the asteroid will pass and how big it is, thanks to the light emitted by the object.

According to data from the US government agency, the flying debris will follow an elliptical orbit, traveling between Mars and Jupiter before approaching Earth.

2021RL3 will move closer to Earth than any other planet in our solar system.

Afterwards, it is expected to revolve around the Sun before making its return.

Earth’s orbit is hit by more than 100 tons of tiny space rocks or other space debris every day, but they are much smaller, with some only a few feet in diameter.

Anything smaller than an average car is likely to burn in the atmosphere and is not considered a threat to the planet.

NASA believes that every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field is likely to find its way through the atmosphere and cause destruction.

And it’s only every few million years that a boulder large enough to threaten life on Earth will appear on the radar.

NASA regularly checks for “close approaches” to track asteroids and comets heading into or near Earth orbit.

The space agency lists these encounters so that astronomers can study the pieces of rock as they pass.

According to spaceweather.com, 2021RL3 is categorized as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), a classification assigned to space rocks greater than approximately 100 m, which can approach Earth within 0.05 AU (750,000,000 km).

While none of the known PHAs are on a collision course with our planet, astronomers frequently find new ones.

The 2021RL3 flyby comes after NASA revealed a new study, in which it examined the likelihood of asteroid Bennu crashing into Earth by the year 2300.

The rock, about a third of a mile wide, is listed as a “potentially dangerous object” to mankind, was first discovered in 1999.

Bennu, a type C rock, is one of the two most dangerous known asteroids in the solar system.

New data from the OSIRIS-REx space probe predict the path of the asteroid through the solar system and increase the overall probability of impact on September 24, 2182.

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