Asteroid the Size of a Building to Pass Close to Earth – Analyze Speed, Size and More

NASA has used its advanced telescopes, including NEOWISE, ALMA, Pans-STARRS1, and Catalina Sky Survey, to monitor a massive asteroid that will come close to Earth today. According to the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the asteroid, named Asteroid 2023 TW6, is currently heading towards Earth and is expected to pass by at a distance of around 7.3 million kilometers. Find out more about the asteroid’s close approach.

Asteroid 2023 TW6: Speed, Size and More

This Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) is expected to make its closest approach to the planet at about 88007 kilometers per hour, much faster than even the Space Shuttle! It is important to note that although it has been called a near-Earth asteroid due to its close flyby distance, it is not expected to actually impact the planet.

It belongs to Apollo’s group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-passing space rocks with semi-major axes larger than Earth’s. These asteroids are named after the huge 1862 Apollo asteroid discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.

How big is the asteroid?

According to NASA, asteroid 2023 TW6 is about 280 feet across, making it almost the size of a building! It is almost 6 times larger than the Chelyabinsk asteroid that caused destruction in 2013. Despite its size, the asteroid has not been called a potentially hazardous asteroid. Only celestial bodies longer than 492 feet that pass Earth closer than 7.5 million kilometers are defined as such.

Shockingly, this asteroid made its first close approach to Earth over 100 years ago! It passed the Earth on December 10, 1905 at a distance of about 63 million kilometers. After today, asteroid 2023 TW6 will pass Earth on October 20, 2030 at a distance of 15 million miles, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Technology used in asteroid hunting

NASA has several space telescopes and ground-based observatories to find, observe, and study asteroids in space. These include the famous Hubble Space Telescope and the new James Webb Space Telescope. In addition, spacecraft such as Dawn, OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 have also helped study these ancient space rocks.