...
By Soo Kim
Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
NASA is monitoring an asteroid that's hurtling towards the Earth at more than 33,000 miles per hour, according to the space agency's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
Designated “2025 XN4,” the space rock is expected to make its closest approach on Tuesday, says NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Estimated to be some 38 feet across, 2025 XN4 is projected will get within a cosmically slight 123,000 miles of our planet.
Read More on Science
2025 XN4 is not the only space rock in the vicinity of our planet this week. NASA is tracking another bus-sized asteroid, called “2025 XX2,” that’s speeding towards the Earth at around 18,000 miles per hour.
Measuring around 33 feet in diameter, 2025 XX2 is projected to make its closest approach on Monday at about 580,000 miles from our planet, NASA says.
...
The space agency is also monitoring two plane-sized asteroids, known as “2016 YH” and “2025 TZ,” as well as a stadium-sized one called “2025 WA3,” that are heading for the Earth on Monday.
Asteroids are small, rocky masses left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. They are found concentrated in the main asteroid belt, which lies around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
"Near-Earth objects" are those asteroids whose orbits bring them within 120 million miles of the sun and into the Earth’s “orbital neighborhood.”
Earlier this year, in February, data from CNEOS showed that the impact probability of an asteroid known as “2024 YR4” in 2032 was at 3.1 percent, which was “the highest impact probability NASA has ever recorded for an object of this size or larger.”
Further studies led NASA to determine that “the object poses no significant impact risk to Earth in 2032 and beyond.”
“The majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that don’t bring them very close to Earth, and therefore pose no risk of impact,” the space agency advises.
However, a small portion of them, known as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), do require closer attention. Measuring over 460 feet in size, PHAs have orbits that bring them as close as within 4.6 million miles of the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
Despite the number of PHAs out in our solar system, none are likely to hit our planet any time soon.
"The 'potentially hazardous' designation simply means over many centuries and millennia, the asteroid's orbit may evolve into one that has a chance of impacting Earth. We do not assess these long-term, many-century possibilities of impact," Paul Chodas, manager of the CNEOS, previously told Newsweek.
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about asteroids? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines