A 32 feet asteroid just passed by our planet today and it is 10 times nearer to earth than the moon. Staggeringly close!
The 10-metre asteroid brushed past at a distance of 40,000 km or 24,854 miles, a tenth of the distance between the earth and the moon, earlier today. And it is not the last close encounter we will be seeing this week.
A much larger 200 feet (61 metres) asteroid is set to pass by earth in the next few days. Luckily, it is not as near as the most recent one.
The gargantuan space rock will whiz past at a distance of about 7 million miles.
On September 17, another of these asteroids is predicted to pass by earth, which is almost as close as the one that sped by today.
The 32 feet asteroid that buzzed by the planet today was discovered by Virtual Telescope Project only yesterday. The asteroid, named 2016 RB1, is one of the closest space rocks to come near earth in the past couple of years.
The distance between the earth and the moon is measured at 384,000 kilometres or 239,000 miles. Imagine a 10-metre object (that's the size of a bus!) at roaring speed, grazing by our planet in a tenth of that distance.
Our mother planet is not new to these encounters, however, as every year dozens of them are observed shooting nearby.
In March of this year, two comets made the closest flyby in decades. The smaller of the two passed the planet by at a distance of 3.5 kilometres or 2.2 million miles.
It is the third closest comet flyby in history. The last one to come that near to earth was in 1983.
These close shaves, horrifyingly near as they may seem, are no cause for alarm. These are great opportunities to help us learn more about the many characters the universe possesses.
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