Asteroid hurtling towards Earth at 60364 kmph! First-ever close approach today

NASA, on September 8, 2016, launched the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) as part of a mission to study a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) called Bennu, which has a 1/2700 chance of impacting Earth between 2175 and 2195. After a nearly 6-year mission that involved landing on the asteroid and collecting rock and dust, the spacecraft landed back on our soil safely on September 24. The collected samples then went under a “nitrogen purge” and will now be transported to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will be inventoried and distributed to scientists all over the world.

In a separate development, NASA has also discovered a Near-Earth Asteroid whose orbit will bring it close to Earth today, and it is bigger in size than the Chelyabinsk asteroid that injured over a thousand people! Know details.

Asteroid 2023 SO5: Details of close approach

NASA has warned that an asteroid, given the designation of Asteroid 2023 SO5, is on its way towards Earth and will make its closest approach to the planet today, September 26. Whilst this space rock will come very close to the planet, it is not expected to impact the surface. This asteroid is travelling at a staggering speed of 60364 kilometers per hour and will pass Earth at a distance of 4.9 million kilometers.

Despite its close approach and breakneck speed, NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) has not classified this asteroid as a Potentially Hazardous Object due to its relatively small size. This is done only for celestial objects larger than about 490 meters that can approach the Earth within 7.5 million kilometers.

According to NASA, Asteroid 2023 SO5 is almost the size of an aircraft with a width of nearly 74 feet! It belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids which are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.

Other details

NASA has also revealed that this will be Asteroid 2023 SO5’s first-ever close approach in history. It is not expected to pass Earth at extremely close distances in the future, although it will come as near as 70 million kilometers on February 21, 2024.

Interestingly, this asteroid has not come close to Earth in its history, and this will be its first-ever close approach. After today, it is not expected to pass Earth anytime soon, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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