[ad_1]
The asteroid, nicknamed by NASA's 2019 KT asteroid, was zipped early in the morning around 4:48 am on May 28 (3:48 UTC). NASA's asteroid trackers at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) closely monitor space rock during the two days before the flyby. The asteroid was first sighted towards the Earth on Sunday, May 26th. And when the asteroid finally approached our planet today, it scratched much closer than the moon.
The KT asteroid is an Apollo type space stone whose orbital trajectory is similar to that of the 1862 Apollo asteroid.
The space rock skimmed the Earth today according to a so-called "near approach to the Earth" but fortunately was not touched.
NASA explained: "You may have heard of an asteroid or comet doing a" close approach "to the Earth.
"This happens when the object in its natural orbit around the Sun passes particularly close to the Earth.
READ MORE: Watch a major asteroid DESTROY Earth in crash simulation
"There is no hard and fast rule on what counts as" near ", but it is not unusual for small asteroids to pass closer to Earth than our own moon.
"It may seem too close for your comfort, but remember that the moon is circling the Earth at about 235,000 km (385,000 km)."
So how close is the KT asteroid to the Earth today?
NASA estimates that the space rock approached at a distance of about 0.00217 astronomical units (at).
READ MORE: How often do asteroids hit Earth?
An astronomical unit describes the distance between the Earth and the Sun, about 93 million miles (149.6 million km).
The asteroid KT reduced this distance to a "nominal distance" of only 201,714 miles (324,627 km).
According to NASA, this equals 0.85 of the lunar distance or 85% of the distance of the moon.
NASA said: "If you represent the Earth with a basketball in a model, the Moon would be the size of a tennis ball and would be about seven meters away – the distance between the two poles. a professional football goal.
READ MORE: NASA highlights a bold asteroid defense plan
"At this scale, an asteroid 100 m wide would be much smaller than a grain of sand, or even smaller than a speck of dust."
NASA's JPL estimates that the KT asteroid measures between 13 and 29 m in diameter.
In the upper part of NASA's size estimate, the size of the asteroid is comparable to around 14 Queen Size beds.
After today's flyby, the asteroid should no longer approach the Earth, but rather fly near the Jupiter gas giant on April 13, 2025.
[ad_2]
Source link