An asteroid the size of a residence gave Earth a end shave this present day (April 18), passing nearer to our planet than every other enviornment rock will for the remainder of this yr — that’s, as a ways as we all know.
Named 2019 GC6, the asteroid turned into chanced on by NASA’s Catalina Sky Investigate cross-test near Tucson, Arizona, appropriate final Tuesday (April 9), nine days ahead of it flew by Earth. The mountainous rock made its closest capability this morning at 2: 41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), when it whizzed by our plant at a safe distance of about 136,000 miles (219,000 kilometers), or a exiguous bit more than half the frequent distance between Earth and the moon.
On the time, the asteroid turned into touring at a relative tear of about 12,600 mph (20,300 km/h), in step with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA estimated that the speeding enviornment rock’s diameter is “within a ingredient of two” of 49 feet (15 meters), which design it could perhaps perchance presumably additionally merely be up to 98 feet (30 meters) wide.
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NASA has labeled 2019 GC6 as a “potentially unsafe” near-Earth object (NEO), but that does now not point out that Earth turned into at chance when it flew by. The company uses that timeframe for any NEO that comes within 5 million miles (8 million km) of Earth’s orbit and is huge ample “to cause critical fret on Earth,” in step with NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Location of business.
Restful, the very fact that many asteroids slip undetected till the final minute — or even after they non-public already made a end flyby of our planet — makes NASA’s free definition of a potentially unsafe object appear rather much less reassuring. The closest asteroid flyby up to now this yr came about a day ahead of astronomers first detected the asteroid, named 2019 FC1. That enviornment rock, when it flew by on March 28, turned into now not up to half as a ways away from Earth as the asteroid 2019 GC6 turned into this present day, in step with EarthSky.org.
To wait on place Earth safe, NASA and other organizations across the world are continuously scanning the skies for recent threats, cataloguing every enviornment rock near Earth’s orbit and studying recent ways to cease an Earthbound asteroid ahead of fret strikes.
- Asteroid Looking Mission Releases Fifth one year of Data
- This Is NASA’s Fresh Draw to Detect and Assassinate Asteroids Sooner than They Hit Earth
- A ‘Self-Utilizing’ Spacecraft Might presumably additionally Wait on Set Earth from Asteroid Collisions
E-mail Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@enviornment.com or put collectively her @hannekescience. Reveal us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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