![]() It is expected to safely fly past Earth on September 6. 2010 FR is 270m large in diameter at its widest point, and has visibility value of 21.7. ![]() Don’t be alarmed, though – 2009 PQ1’s passage should be perfectly safe, and not pose any imminent threat to us.Īsteroid 465824 2010 FR’s close approach to Earth will be the farthest among all the large space rocks floating around us, where at about 7.4 million kilometres away, its orbit intersection with Earth is at the upper limit of what is considered ‘hazardous’. However, its H value of 22.5 is also the highest in this list, which yet again squarely classifies it as a PHA, as per NASA’s CNEOS data. It will come to its closest distance with Earth on August 5, when it will be at a distance of 4.12 million kilometres from our planet. ![]() The asteroid 2009 PQ1 is the smallest of the big asteroids in this list, measuring 190m in diameter at its widest point. Scheduled to fly by on July 24, asteroid 2020 ND will thankfully be further away from Earth, and approach our planet at a distance of about 5.57 million kilometres at its nearest orbit intersection with Earth.ĪLSO READ | An Asteroid Will Zoom Past Earth in September and it Will be Closer Than the Moon With H value of 22.2, the asteroid 2002 BF25 qualifies as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA), and is one of the larger space rocks to come near our planet this year.įollowing up later this week is the asteroid 2020 ND, which is 260m large at its widest point, and has designated H value of almost 22. 2002 BF25 measures 220m in diameter at its widest point, and is expected to be about 3.6 million kilometres from Earth at its closest approach. The most immediate threat comes to Earth as early as tomorrow, July 21, when asteroid 2002 BF25 is slated to whoosh past our planet. Taking these data points into consideration, here are six asteroids that are almost 200 metres or larger in diameter, and are scheduled to fly past Earth in close proximity in 2020. It is this orbit distance, coupled with visual magnitude (denoted as H) of 22 or above, that classifies an asteroid as a ‘potentially hazardous’ one, even if it does not necessarily mean that life on Earth will be threatened by it. As per the data, there are 48 asteroids of varying sizes, which are slated to approach Earth at a minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of less than 0.05 AU (~7.48 million km). Operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology, CNEOS now maintains a publicly available data sheet of near-Earth asteroids, which includes both historic data, as well as asteroids that are expected to fly past Earth in relatively close quarters. Asteroid approaches near Earth are no longer a rare occurrence to observe, thanks to NASA’s Centre for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) initiative.
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