Today, an asteroid about a
third of a mile in diameter will
zip by Earth, closer than any celestial object its size until 2027.
No, it’s not going to hit
us. But by space standards, that’s quite a close brush, and it will give
scientists a unique opportunity to gather data from it.
2004 BL86, as NASA has
designated it, will pass 745,000 miles from Earth, about three times the
distance from here to the moon. That’s close enough to allow
astronomers at Goldstone Observatory and Arecibo
Observatory to snap fairly detailed radar images of the massive space
rock.
Watch our
planet narrowly avoid its doom:
It’s coming close enough
that you’ll be able to observe it with strong binoculars or a backyard
telescope (and here are its sky charts so you can find it). That is,
of course, unless you live in the Northeast, where the incoming historic blizzard will make it difficult for you
to see two feet in front of your face, let alone a flying rock hundreds of
thousands of miles into space.
In 2027, the asteroid 1999
AN10 will come about 240,000 miles from Earth, or roughly the same
distance from here to the moon. NASA has calculated the chances of AN10 and other
asteroids hitting Earth, and we seem to be in the clear for the foreseeable
future.
And in the unlikely event that scientists do detect
an asteroid with an Earth-impact trajectory, we can always send
Bruce Willis to go blow it up.
You can watch the giant
flying space-mountain zooming by Earth at 35,000 miles per hour live at 11am EST here.
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