When you purchase by means of hyperlinks on our articles, Future and its syndication companions might earn a fee.
Credit: 2024 NEO Coordination Centre – European Space Agency (ESA)
Earth obtained a comparatively shut shave this morning (Dec. 4), as a large house rock zipped by simply 1.4 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) away.
The asteroid, known as 2020 XR, made its closest method at this time at roughly 12:26 a.m. EST (0526 GMT), passing just below six occasions the gap between Earth and the moon. The flyby got here on the fourth anniversary of 2020 XR’s discovery,.
Asteroid 2020 XR is someplace between 1,000 and a pair of,300 ft (300 and 700 meters) huge, based on the European Space Agency (ESA). At roughly the scale of a big stadium — or a number of million elephants, based on ChatGPT — 2020 XR is greater than able to destroying considered one of our Earth cities, ought to the asteroid ever occur to tragically intersect with one. And, for a short time after the asteroid’s 2020 discovery, astronomers feared the house rock had an opportunity of doing simply that.
a black canvas speckled closely with white dots. a purple arrow factors to a tiny dot within the middle.
The near-Earth object (NEO) was found utilizing the Pan-STARRS 2 observatory in Hawaii 4 years in the past. The asteroid’s obvious orbit on the time indicated the opportunity of an affect with Earth in 2028.
However, reexamination of previous commentary knowledge revealed beforehand undetected photographs of 2020 XR, permitting astronomers to extra precisely calculate the asteroid’s trajectory and finally conclude a zero-percent likelihood of affect with Earth till no less than the yr 2120.
Related: What are asteroids?
RELATED STORIES:
— Tiny asteroid detected hours earlier than hitting Earth to develop into 4th ‘imminent impactor’ of 2024
— An asteroid hit Earth simply hours after being detected. It was the third ‘imminent impactor’ of 2024
— Tiny asteroid burns up harmlessly in Earth’s environment over Philippines. ‘Discovered this morning,’ ESA says
NASA classifies any asteroids or comets in orbits inside the same distance from the solar as Earth as NEOs, and people bigger than 460 ft (140 m) that additionally fly nearer than 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km) of Earth are deemed probably hazardous. As of December 2024, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is monitoring greater than 2,400 probably hazardous asteroids (PHAs), together with 2020 XR.
The subsequent shut cross by asteroid 2020 XR will happen in November 2028, albeit at a extra comfy distance than this yr’s flyby. Four years from now, 2020 XR will come inside about 11.3 million miles (18.2 million km) of Earth — much more distant, fortunately, than astronomers’ first 2028 predictions for the house rock.
