 travelling at about 84,500 km per hour. This makes it just a little short of the height of Dubai's 2,716-foot-tall (828 metre) Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Nasa classifies asteroids that come within less than 7.5 million km of Earth as 'potentially hazardous' but experts assure that there's nothing to worry about with this one. It's expected to come as close as 1.43 million miles (2.3 million kilometres) to Earth. That's around six times the distance between the Moon and the Earth, which is still very close for cosmic standards. However, you can rest assured that it won't be apocalyptic in the least. In fact, the encounter presents an exciting opportunity for sky-watchers as amateur astronomers will be able to see the asteroid's approach online or with a backyard telescope. Nasa has been tracking the trajectories of all near-Earth objects beyond the end of the century and it looks like the Earth is in no grave danger for at least the next 100 years. In the event that a space object is getting too close for comfort Nasa has it covered. No danger, but newly-discovered asteroid 2022 RM4 will pass less than 6 lunar distances on November 1. Possibly as wide as 740 meters, it will brighten to mag 14.3, well within reach of backyard telescopes. @unistellar This is very close for an asteroid this size. #2022RM4 pic.twitter.com/Z8khblg3Gq— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) October 5, 2022 In September, Nasa successfully crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid, managing to successfully alter its orbit. This marked humanity's first time intentionally changing the motion){kind=link}
A newely discovered asteroid, that’s twice the size of The Shard, is set to safely zoom past the Earth tonight.
According to Nasa’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies, the asteroid named 2022 RM4 is going to make its closest approach to Earth on 1 November.
The asteroid, classed by astronomers as ‘potentially hazardous’, has an estimated diameter between 1,083 and 2,428 feet (330 and 740 metres) travelling at about 84,500 km per hour.
This makes it just a little short of the height of Dubai’s 2,716-foot-tall (828 metre) Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.
Nasa classifies asteroids that come within less than 7.5 million km of Earth as ‘potentially hazardous’ but experts assure that there’s nothing to worry about with this one.