NASA Warns of 180-Foot Asteroid Making Closest-Ever Flyby of Earth

Asteroids have been a threat to Earth for millions of years, and despite humanity’s discovery of the first asteroid in 1801, these ancient space rocks have consistently impacted the planet, shaping history. In order to gain a better understanding of asteroids, particularly those outside of the asteroid belt, NASA launched the Lucy mission on October 16, 2021, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission’s objective is to study the Trojans, a group of asteroids that orbit the Sun in two clusters, as stated by NASA. The spacecraft is designed to locate trojan asteroids that are millions of kilometers away from Earth. Recently, the spacecraft captured its first glimpse of a Trojan asteroid named Dinikinesh, which measures approximately half a kilometer in width.

Using similar space and ground-based telescopes and other sophisticated technical instruments, NASA has revealed that another asteroid is hurtling toward Earth today.

Asteroid 2023 RH2 details

The asteroid named Asteroid 2023 RH2 is already on its way to Earth and is traveling at an amazing speed of 77303 kilometers per hour in an orbit around the Sun. NASA expects this asteroid to make its closest approach to Earth today, September 13, passing at a distance of nearly 4.3 million kilometers.

According to NASA, this asteroid is not small either. At nearly 180 feet wide, it can be compared to an airplane! While not big enough to be called a planet killer, it could still cause damage, especially if it crashed in a densely populated area. This space rock belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are space rocks that pass through the Earth and whose semi-major axes are larger than the Earth’s axis. These asteroids are named after the huge 1862 Apollo asteroid discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.

Shockingly, this will be the first close-to-Earth approach in the history of Asteroid 2023 RH2. According to details provided by NASA’s Small-Body Database Lookup, it will not pass the planet again in the near future.