Science

NASA asteroid tracker: Asteroid discovered YESTERDAY is headed for Earth approach tonight


2019 FW was first observed by asteroid-tracking radars on Wednesday, March 27. The speedy asteroid is now firmly en route to skim the Earth from an incredibly close distance in the wee morning hours of Friday, March 29. NASA’s asteroid trackers at the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are ready to see the asteroid fly by at 2.26am GMT (UTC) tonight. Since that initial observation on Wednesday, NASA has tracked the space rock an additional 62 times to chart out its speed, size and trajectory.

The US space agency has determined the asteroid will shoot past Earth at breakneck speeds of 6.23km per second or 13,936mph (22,530kph).

also estimates the space rock measures somewhere in the range of 55.7ft to 121.4ft (17m to 37m) in diameter.

An asteroid at the upper end of this estimate is up to 4.4 times as long as London double-decker bus or 18 times longer than a Queen Size bed.

According to NASA, Asteroid FW is an Apollo-type object, because its orbit is similar to that of near-Earth asteroid 1862 Apollo.

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This means Asteroid FW will occasionally cut into the Earth’s journey around the Sun on what is known as an “Earth Close Approach”.

All asteroids and comets which do this are dubbed “Near-Earth Objects” or NEOs.

NASA explained: “As they orbit the Sun, Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth.

“Note that a ‘close’ passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometres.”

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But what does all of this mean for the asteroid’s flyby of Earth later tonight?

Thankfully, there is no risk of the asteroid striking our home-world anytime soon.

Even at its closest tonight, NASA expects Asteroid FW to only skim the Earth from a distance of 0.02069 astronomical units (au).

One astronomical unit roughly translates into 93 million miles (149.6 million km) or the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

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Asteroid FW will cut this down considerably to just 1.92 million miles (3.09 million km).

In other words, the asteroid will shoot past the Earth about as eight times as far as the Moon is.

But this is not the first time NASA believes the rock passed the Earth.

According to the JPL, the asteroid’s orbit shows it previously flew past us on February 10, 2017.

And after tonight’s approach, the rock will visit Earth’s corner of space again on January 15, 2021, and May 11, 2021.



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