Two skyscraper-sized asteroids are headed toward Earth this weekend, with one making its closest approach on Friday (July 29) and the other circling by Saturday (July 30).
According to NASA, the first asteroid, called 2016 CZ31, will fly by about 7 a.m. ET (23:00 GMT) on Friday, moving at an estimated speed of 34,560 mph (55,618 km/h).
Astronomers estimate that the asteroid measures about 400 feet (122 m) across at its widest point, making it about as wide as a 40-story building. The asteroid will safely miss our planet, about 1,740,000 miles (2,800,000 kilometers) from Earth – or more than seven times the average distance between Earth and the Moon.
According to NASA, this space rock gets closer to Earth every few years, with the next one scheduled for January 2028.
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On Saturday, at a greater distance from Earth, a second, ever larger asteroid will pass our planet. That asteroid, named 2013 CU83, measures about 600 feet (183 m) at its widest point of view and will pass about 4,320,000 miles (6,960,000 km) from Earth, or about 18 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon.
This massive space rock will be traveling at 13,153 mph (21,168 km/h) when it is near Earth at 7:37 p.m. ET (23:37 GMT).
Both of these close encounters are significantly further away than asteroid 2022 NF, which came within 56,000 miles (90,000 km) — or about 23 percent of the average distance between Earth and the Moon — on July 7.
NASA and other space agencies closely monitor thousands of such near-Earth objects.
Even if an asteroid’s trajectory places it at a distance of millions of miles from our planet, there is little chance that the asteroid’s orbit may change slightly after a large body such as a planet interacts with gravity; Even such a short innings could potentially put a
n asteroids on a collision course with Earth on future flybys.
As such, space agencies take planetary defense very seriously. In November 2021, NASA launched an asteroid-deflection spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART), which will collide directly into the 525-foot-wide (160 m) asteroid Dimorphos in the autumn of 2022.
The collision won’t destroy the asteroid, but it could slightly alter the space rock’s orbital path, as previously reported by Live Science. The mission will help test the feasibility of asteroid deflection, if an asteroid poses an imminent threat to our planet in the future.
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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.
