Close encounter with an asteroid today! Know speed, size and more

An asteroid, given the designation of Asteroid 2023 SZ, is on its way towards Earth and could make its closest approach to the planet today, September 25. It is just one of the 1298148 asteroids that have been discovered by space agencies so far. NASA, with the help of its advanced space and ground-based telescopes, tracked the asteroid and shed light on details such as its speed, distance of approach, and more.

Asteroid 2023 SZ: Close approach details

According to the US space agency, Asteroid 2023 SZ is expected to make its closest approach to the planet at a distance of just 2.1 million kilometers, and at a speed of 15337 kilometers per hour, which is much faster than a hypersonic ballistic missile!

According to NASA, this space rock belongs to the Amor group of Near-Earth Asteroids which are Earth-approaching near-Earth asteroids with orbits exterior to Earth but interior to Mars’, named after asteroid 1221 Amor, which was discovered by Belgian astronomer E. Delporte in 1932.

Asteroid 2023 SZ has not been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Object due to its relatively small size. Only objects larger than 492 feet in diameter are deemed hazardous. In comparison, Asteroid 2023 SZ is between 59 feet and 131 feet wide, making it almost as big as a house or a small aircraft.

Asteroid impacts in 2023

Asteroids often make close approaches to Earth, but did you know that one of them hit the planet this year? NASA revealed that on February 15, a 1000-pound, space rock turned into an atmospheric fireball and broke into pieces about 21 miles above Earth’s surface and was found near McAllen, Texas. Law enforcement agencies in the McAllen region received several calls from residents who reported hearing a loud explosion. According to NASA, the space rock was traveling at about 43000 kilometers per hour and it had an energy of about 8 tons of TNT.

Then on July 6, a meteor crashed and hit a woman who was sipping coffee on her terrace! According to a report by the local French newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, a woman sitting on her terrace in the village of Alsace in Eastern France was struck by a meteor that bounced off the roof and hit her chest.

Later, she got the rock examined by a geologist named Dr. Thierry Rebmann, who confirmed that it was indeed a meteorite from outer space!

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