NASA spots an asteroid speeding towards Earth today! Clocks it at 29788 kmph
NASA defines NEOs as an object whose orbit brings it within a zone approximately 195 million kilometers from the Sun, meaning that it can pass within about 50 million kilometers of Earth's orbit. Asteroids are Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) which are often found orbiting the Sun in the main asteroid belt near Jupiter. Most of these space rocks burn up and disintegrate before reaching the planet but some can still pass through. It seems like another is all set to pass by as NASA has issued an alert about an asteroid today.
NASA has issued an alert against an asteroid named Asteroid 2022 US14. The humongous 130-foot wide asteroid, similar to the size of a commercial aircraft, is expected to come extremely close to Earth today, November 18. Its distance of close approach will be just 3.2 million kilometers. The asteroid is already on its way towards Earth, travelling at a staggering speed of 29788 kilometers per hour.
According to the-sky.org, the Asteroid 2022 US14 belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids. It was discovered recently on October 27. This asteroid takes 1192 days to complete one trip around the Sun during which its maximum distance from the Sun is 514 million kilometers and nearest distance is 144 million kilometers.
After yesterday's successful launch, the Orion spacecraft captured a breathtaking image of Earth while leaving the planet's atmosphere. NASA shared the image on the Orion spacecraft's twitter page. The space agency wrote, “We look back at the Earth from 58,000 miles away. Find out more about the cameras Orion uses to capture this flight.”
According to NASA, there are 24 cameras aboard the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), with 8 cameras on the Orion spacecraft, and the rest aboard the
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