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The two red lines indicate the 2018 asteroid VX1, which will be traveling to the Earth district on Saturday.
Credit: Gianluca Masi / Virtual Telescope Project
Three big asteroids will pass near the Earth this weekend, and one of them is approaching our planet rather than the moon itself.
On Saturday, November 10, the near-Earth asteroid 2018 VX1 will sneak within 380,000 kilometers of the Earth. It's closer than the moon, which hangs at around 384,400 km while it revolves around the Earth.
Although this space meeting in space is near, it will pose no danger to the Earth, said astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, founder and director of the virtual telescope project in Italy, which broadcasts live the show heavenly online from 13h. EST (18:00 UTC) on Saturdays. [Black Marble Images: Earth at Night]
"There is no risk of impact [on Earth], "Masi told Live Science." Although one of them comes basically as close as the moon, this distance is still long. "
The other two asteroids will not venture so close to Earth, but have always attracted the attention of scientists. These include the asteroid 2018 VS1, which will grow to about 1.38 million km from the Earth – almost four times farther from the Earth than the Moon – at 9:03 am EST (14:03 UTC).
The asteroid 2018 VSI has a diameter between 12 and 28 m (43 and 92 feet).
Meanwhile, the 2018 asteroid VR1 is expected to fly to Earth at 09:19 EST (14:19 UTC) Saturday. This asteroid is even further away, about 5 million km from the Earth. This asteroid close to the Earth has a diameter between 13 and 30 m (45 and 100 feet).
People here on Earth will be able to see the show's star – the asteroid 2018 VX1 – online around 1:20 pm. EST (18:20 UTC), "the moment of its minimal distance with us," said Masi. Scientists at the Mount Lemmon Survey near Tucson, Arizona, discovered this asteroid on November 4. Two days later, the Minor Planet Center announced the discovery, estimating the diameter of the asteroid between 26 and 59 feet (8 and 18 m).
On November 8, the virtual telescope took the above photo of the 2018 VX1 asteroid with a single exposure of 600 seconds.
"The telescope has followed the apparent movement of the asteroid, which is why the stars are displaying long streaks," said Masi. "The asteroid looks like a point of light in the center of the image, marked by two red lines."
Originally posted on Live Science.
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