Asteroid JD2 will be blazing over the Earth at an extremely high speed of 46,891 mph.
Airplane-Sized, Bus-Sized Asteroids To Pass Over Earth Soon
According to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the asteroid is approximately 200-feet long. Its closest approach to the Earth will be on May 16, with its nearest point being roughly 3.5 million miles away.
Aside from this, two bus-sized asteroids, with estimated lengths of 12 feet and 9 feet, respectively, are also set to fly by Earth the following day. Their closest distances will be roughly 1.3 million miles and 1.6 million miles, respectively.
Near-Earth Objects
MailOnline reports that, though there are small chances for the asteroid to hit the Earth, potential asteroid collisions have not been definitely ruled out.
The JPL's Center for Near Object Studies (CNEOS) continues to keep asteroids within its watch, especially near-Earth objects (NEOs). A comet or asteroid is considered a NEO if it enters a 120-million-mile radius from the Sun. This means that they can move through the orbital neighborhood of the Earth.
According to the JPL, the majority of these NEOs are asteroids that have lengths that range from 10 feet to almost 25 miles. Around 30 new NEOs are found each week. MailOnline adds that, when 2019 started, over 19,000 objects were detected.
However, the agency warns that its catalog of NEOs is not complete. This means that an unforeseen impact may take place at any point in time.
In fact, experts think that the impact of a cosmic object that is as big as the one that burst in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, could take place once or twice within a century. This specific object was roughly 55 meters long.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
On top of NEOs, there are also cosmic rocks that get labeled as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). According to Live Science, PHAs are NEOs that have diameters that go beyond 460 feet and that could enter a 4.65-million-mile radius from Earth. Such a distance is roughly 20 times the typical Moon-Earth distance.
If such an asteroid were to enter the atmosphere of the Earth without blazing in flames, it may lead to grave injuries and damages, especially if it crashed into an area that is densely populated.
The CNEOS has been able to pinpoint roughly 31,000 NEOs as of March 2023. Among these are 2,300 PHAs. Most of them are from the primary asteroid belt, and their rotations alter throughout the Solar System's evolution over time.
Live Science reports that, according to NASA, roughly half of all known NEOs have a diameter that goes beyond 460 feet. However, they are not close enough to the Earth to bring any significant threats.
RELATED ARTICLE: Earth Has Three Times Higher Risk of an Asteroid Impact Than Previously Thought, NASA Warns
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