Nasa says ‘close approach’ of asteroid traveling 30,000mph will happen today

When was the asteroid discovered?

The asteroid was first spotted by Nasa several years ago.

Nasa first discovered the asteroid on January 17, 2013, when it was 15million miles away from the Earth’s atmosphere.

How fast is the asteroid?

The asteroid 2013 BO76 will hurtle past on Thursday at a staggering 30,000 miles per hour (50,000 kph), according to Nasa trackers.

How far away will the asteroid be?

The asteroid will fly by at a safe distance of around 3.1million miles, according to data on Nasa’s Near-Earth Object database.

London Eye-sized

Science Times noted that the asteroid passing Earth on Thursday “is approximately three times larger than the London Eye.”

Relatable distance

On Twitter, IFL Science shared a hilarious comparison in regards to the size of the asteroid passing Earth today.

“An asteroid is on course to pass Earth today at a mere distance of 3,180,000 miles!” the tweet read.

“This chunk of space rock measures in at a whopping 850ft diameter – or in terms we can all understand, 2,237 ferrets.”

When will the asteroid fly by?

According to Nasa’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, asteroid 2013 BO76 will make its close pass at 10.55pm UTC on Thursday.

That’s 6.55pm ET.

Water may flow on asteroid surfaces

Vesta observations from 2015 reveal gullies that may have been sculpted by water.

According to the theory, when a smaller asteroid collides with a larger one, the smaller asteroid releases a layer of ice in the larger asteroid.

The contact converted the ice into water, which flashed over the surface for a brief while.

How far was Asteroid 138971 from Earth?

It shot past us on March 4 from an estimated distance of 3million miles away.

In comparison, the Moon is only about 238,900 miles from us.

A few million miles may sound pretty far away but it’s actually quite close in terms of space.

What is Asteroid 138971?

Asteroid 138971 (2001 CB21) was said to be up to 4,265 feet wide.

That made it almost three times as big as the Empire State Building.

The Empire State Building stands at around 1,453 feet tall so would pale in comparison to Asteroid 138971 (2001 CB21).

Nasa had put the asteroid on its ‘Earth Close Approaches’ list.

Will an asteroid hit Earth soon?

According to NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, no asteroids represent a major risk of colliding with Earth in the next 100 years.

How are asteroids found?

Giuseppe Piazzi, an Italian priest and astronomer, accidentally found Ceres, the first and biggest asteroid, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, while drawing a star map in 1801.

Ceres, while being categorized as a dwarf planet today, is responsible for a quarter of the mass of all known asteroids in or around the main asteroid belt.

NASA has been leading a program to find and track near-Earth asteroids since around 2000.

According to CNEOS, programs like the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona and the Pan-STARRS telescopes in Hawaii specialize in locating asteroids and have identified hundreds of them.

Where are asteroids found?

Asteroids are found mostly in three areas of the solar system.

The majority of asteroids are found in a large ring between Mars and Jupiter’s orbits.

More than 200 asteroids bigger than 60 miles (100 kilometers) in diameter are found in this primary asteroid belt.

According to NASA, the asteroid belt includes between 1.1million and 1.9million asteroids bigger than one kilometer (3,281 feet) in diameter, as well as millions of smaller ones.

What is an exoplanet?

Exoplanets are planets outside of our Solar System. Thousands have been discovered since the 1980s.

In addition to being possible locations of extraterrestrial life, they provide opportunities to better understand the evolution of the universe.

According to Nasa’s exoplanet database, of the ten exoplanets found this year, six are larger than Jupiter.

TESS prediction

A paper published online last month predicted the number of exoplanets that TESS will find over the course of its seven-year mission.

According to scientists, the agency’s exoplanet-hunting spacecraft will uncover upwards of 12,000 exoplanets by 2024.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made their calculations using data collected by the $287million spacecraft to date.

What TESS has found so far

So far, TESS has found nearly 5,000 worlds of all shapes and sizes, including gas giants, Neptune-like ice worlds, and so-called Super-Earths.

A Super-Earth has a mass higher than our planet’s below those of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.

The search for alien life

Launched four years ago, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a space telescope designed to search for undiscovered worlds.

It’s searching an area of sky 400 times larger than that covered by the Kepler mission, in a bid to find candidates that could host alien life.

What are Trojan asteroids?

These asteroids are in the same orbit as a bigger planet, but they don’t crash because they congregate around two specific spots – L4 and L5 Lagrangian points – in the orbit.

The Sun’s and the planet’s gravitational pulls are counterbalanced by a trojan’s proclivity to fly out of orbit.

The Jupiter trojans are the most numerous of the trojan asteroids.

They are estimated to be as abundant as asteroids in the asteroid belt.

There are trojans on Mars and Neptune, and in 2011, NASA reported the finding of an Earth trojan.

Types of asteroids- M-types

The M-types (nickel-iron): are made of metal. The compositional variations between asteroids are linked to how distant they originated from the Sun. After they formed and partially melted, some endured tremendous temperatures, with iron sinking to the center and driving basaltic (volcanic) lava to the surface.

Types of asteroids- S-types

• The S-types (stony) asteroids are made up of nickel-iron silicate minerals.

Types of asteroids- C-Type

C-Type (chondrite) are the most common asteroids. They are most likely made up of clay and silicate rocks and have a black look. They are among the solar system’s oldest ancient things.

Asteroids approaching: 2022 EZ1

Amor-group Asteroid 2022 EZ1 flew near Earth around 4:30am on Sunday, after being studied for only four days before.

The 51-foot object approached Earth from 4.55million miles away, and is set to orbit nearby again in 875 days.

When is the next threatening asteroid passing Earth?

The next near-Earth object threat will be in March 2023, when Asteroid 2005 ED224 will come closest to the planet.

Traveling at a speed of 61,000mph, the 164-foot asteroid has a 1 in 500,000 probability of actually hitting the Earth.

Asteroids approaching: 2022 EM

This giant Apollo-class asteroid approached Earth on Sunday morning around 9:00am, which is exactly what was predicted.

2022 EM flew past Earth at a distance of 4.41million miles.

Asteroids approaching: 2022 DT3

2022 DT3 flew past Earth on Saturday night around 9:30pm at almost 12 miles per second.

The 71-foot long asteroid was about 2.33million miles away from Earth.

Asteroids approaching: 2022 DO1

2022 DO1 approached Earth Saturday night around 9:40pm.

The celestial object is about 48-feet in size, and it came within 1.57million miles of Earth.