Asteroid 2024 AE3 to pass by Earth today, says NASA! How big is it? Find out
NASA, with the help of its advanced space and ground-based telescopes, has recently tracked the asteroid that is set to pass Earth today, January 19. The asteroid, given the designation of Asteroid 2024 AE3 by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), is travelling towards Earth in its orbit at a breakneck speed of 27076 kilometers per hour, which is almost as fast as Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)!
NASA expects this space rock to fly past Earth at a close margin of approximately 4.2 million kilometers.
While this asteroid will pass by closely, it isn't big enough to cause panic or any potential damage. As per NASA, the asteroid is 160 feet wide, making it almost as big as an aircraft! However, if it crashes on Earth, it could still cause damage to a certain degree especially if that happens to be in crowded places like cities. In 2013, a smaller 59-foot asteroid exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia, damaging 7000 buildings and injuring over 1000 people injured. This asteroid is almost triple the size of the Chelyabinsk asteroid!
Asteroid 2024 AE3 belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-crossing space rocks with semi-major axes larger than Earth's. These asteroids are named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.
NASA has also revealed that Asteroid 2024 AE3 has passed Earth before. It first flew past the planet on March 10, 1950, at a distance of almost 72 million kilometers. NASA says that after today, this asteroid will come close again on December 6, 2043, and it will pass the planet by a distance of 27 million kilometers.
Did you know that astronomers have also turned to algorithms for asteroid hunting? According to a study published by the University of Washington, an algorithm, named HelioLinc3D, helped researchers discover a potentially hazardous asteroid. Asteroid 2022 SF289, which is almost 600 feet wide, was discovered during the
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