A SCHOOLBUS-SIZED asteroid will make a very close approach this week, according to space object trackers.
Astronomers only spotted the near-Earth space rock 2022 GN1 a few days ahead of its head-turning flyby on Wednesday.
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Nasa has logged the 16-metre-long mass on its “close approach” online database, though it poses no danger to our planet.
The asteroid is expected to soar past at a safe distance of around 79,000 miles (127,000 km).
That may sound like a considerable gap but is remarkably close in space terms at around a third of the space between Earth and the Moon.
It makes 2022 GN1 the closest known asteroid to pass by Earth since April 1, when one passed within 34,000 miles (55,000 km) of us.
Wednesday’s asteroid was discovered by the Hawaii-based Pan-Starrs survey on April 1 and announced yesterday.
Its diameter is estimated to be between 7.2 and16 meters, according to Nasa’s near-Earth object database.
The Virtual Telescope Project, a set of robotic scopes in Italy, has announced that it will live stream Wednesday’s flyby on its website.
The live feed kicks off on 6 April 2022 at 2:00 a.m. UK time (9:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday).
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2022 GN1 is one of more than a dozen space objects expected to make what Nasa calls “close approaches” this week.
Thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs) are tracked to provide an early warning should they shift onto a collision course with our planet.
Any space object that comes within 4.6million miles of us is considered “potentially hazardous” by cautious space organisations.
Fortunately, none of the asteroids being tracked by the space agency are thought to pose any danger to us.
Earth hasn’t seen an asteroid of apocalyptic scale since the space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs 66million years ago.
However, smaller objects capable of flattening an entire city crash into Earth every so often.
One a few hundred metres across devastated 800 square miles of forest near Tunguska in Siberia on June 30, 1908.
“Nasa knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small,” Nasa says.
“In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years.”
Even if one were to hit our planet, the vast majority of asteroids would not wipe out life as we know it.
“Global catastrophes” are only triggered when objects larger than 900 metres across smash into Earth, according to Nasa.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
