NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office is the organization responsible for monitoring the skies and keeping a watch on various Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). The organization has issued a warning against an asteroid designated as Asteroid 2023 QC5 which is set to make its closest approach to Earth in years. This Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) is expected to make its closest approach to Earth today, September 8. Although this asteroid will come very close to the planet, it is not expected to impact the surface and cause damage.
Asteroid 2023 QC5: Details of close approach
According to NASA, Asteroid 2023 QC5 will pass by Earth at a distance of about 4 million kilometers. The asteroid is already on its way towards the planet, travelling at a staggering speed of 27315 kilometers per hour. According to NASA, Asteroid 2023 QC5 is almost 82 feet wide, making it almost as big as an aircraft!
Although it isn’t nearly as big to cause the extinction of species, the asteroid could still potentially cause some degree of damage, especially if it crashes in a densely populated area. It is bigger in size than the 59-foot-wide Chelyabinsk asteroid that exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia which damaged 7000 buildings and injured 1400 people.
NASA has also revealed that this space rock belongs to the Amor group of Near-Earth Asteroids which are Earth-approaching near-Earth asteroids with orbits exterior to Earth but interior to Mars’, named after asteroid 1221 Amor, which was discovered by Belgian astronomer E. Delporte in 1932.
Close asteroid flyby
On the morning of September 7, scientists discovered an asteroid that flew closer to Earth than most other space rocks! The asteroid, designated C9FMVU2, was discovered just a few hours prior to its close approach. As per the details, it passed Earth at a distance of just 4000 kilometers, which is just 1/100 the distance between the Moon and Earth!
Fortunately, this asteroid was minuscule in size, with a width of just 6.5 feet, making it as big as a car. ESA revealed that even if this asteroid had entered the Earth’s atmosphere, it would have turned into a fireball and streaked across the sky, breaking up into tiny pieces.
