NASA has its eye on five “close approach” asteroids that are set to shoot past Earth on Thanksgiving.
The five space rocks are all on Nasa’s “Earth Close Approaches” list and one could be larger than the Statue of Liberty.
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The first asteroid to skim past up on Thanksgiving will be Asteroid 2021 VR4.
Nasa thinks that space rock could be up to 102 feet wide and it should pass Earth at a range of around 508,759 miles.
That may seem pretty far away but it’s actually very close as near-Earth asteroids go.
Nasa considers anything passing within 120million miles of Earth a Near-Earth Object (NEO).
Thousands of NEOs are tracked by scientists to monitor whether they’re on a collision course with our planet.
Any fast-moving space object that comes within 4.65 million miles is considered to be “potentially hazardous” by cautious space organizations.
One small change to their trajectories could spell disaster for Earth.
Asteroid 2021 VR4 is expected to fly past at around 17,000 miles per hour.
It will shortly be followed by the largest of the five Thanksgiving asteroids, which is Asteroid 2009 WB105.
That space rock could be up to 394 feet wide, making it larger than the Statue of Liberty which stands at around 305 feet high.
The huge asteroid will be traveling at around 42,000 miles per hour but should stay 3.6 million miles away.
Asteroid 2021 VQ27 will be the next space rock to pass in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning.
That space rock could be up to 79 feet wide and should shoot past at 22,000 miles per hour at a distance of around 652,000 miles away.
The final two asteroids should be shooting past just before many people in the US sit down for Thanksgiving dinner.
Asteroid 2021 VF11 will be first and could be up to 75 feet wide.
It should pass us at a distance of 4.4 million miles away with slower speeds of just over 3,000 miles per hour.
The final Thanksgiving asteroid is a space rock called 2019 BB5 and Nasa thinks it’s up to 89 feet wide.
It could come as close as 3.6 million miles from Earth and should be traveling at a speed of around 19,000 miles per hour.
Despite all the space rocks, there’s still no need to panic as none of the asteroids are expected to impact Earth.
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