5 Asteroids Will Pass by Earth This Week — Including 3 the Size of Planes, NASA Says

Photo:Getty

Getty

Through the end of the week, the five separate objects will make their approach, but fortunately, none of them are viewed as a threat,according to a NASA asteroid dashboard.

The dashboard displays the next five Earth approaches within 4.6 million miles, and the closest one of the objects, a 170-foot-long “airplane” sized QE8 asteroid, will only get within 930,000 miles of Earth on Sunday, per the dashboard.

Also on Sunday, another airplane-sized 68-foot asteroid called QF6 is expected to come within 1,650,000 miles of Earth.

A house-sized (59 foot) asteroid will come within 3,170,000 of the planet on Wednesday, while the other two asteroids — QC5, an 83-foot-long airplane-sized object, and a 26-foot-long “bus”- sized asteroid termed GE — will come within 2,530,000 and 3,560,000 miles respectively on Friday.

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For reference, the average distance between Earth and the moon is about 239,000 miles, per NASA.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

None of the asteroids are viewed as “potentially hazardous” because they are not greater than 150 meters (about 492 feet) in size, according to NASA.

There are currently32,412 asteroids that are described as “near Earth,” according to the space agency, as of August 31.

source: people.com