NASA: 140-foot Asteroid heading towards Earth on Thursday
A huge aeroplane-sized space rock dubbed as Asteroid 2022 TC1 is heading for Earth and will come very close tomorrow, on October 6, 2022. The space rock is around 4.95 million kilometres away, equivalent to 0.03 astronomical units away from Earth, and hence, it is close enough for astronomers to track using radar. According to data from the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the space rock's flyby is estimated at a distance of 4.74 million kilometres at a speed of 23 kilometers per second. This asteroid is 140 feet in size, but you need not to worry about the threat.
Nasa's Planetary Defence Coordination Office keeps an eye on all the space rocks flying by our planet as well as in our solar system. As reported by www.sky.org, the space rock 2022 TC1 is currently in the east in the constellation of Cetus at an altitude of 3° above the horizon. It will sink towards the horizon around tomorrow 06:50.”
It was first detected on October 3, 2022. It belongs to the Apollo group and completes one orbit around the Sun in 799 days. The farthest point from the Sun of the asteroid 2022 TC1 orbits is 385 million kilometres, and the perihelion nearest point to the Sun is 119 million kilometres.
As asteroids keep making close passes, to save earth from a destructive one, NASA has just tested its ability to deflect an asteroid from its path by using Kinetic impact. Nasa's DART mission is a huge success as it crashed into the target asteroid Dimorphous. Now, data will show whether the asteroid was actually deflected from its path.
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