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As a battered and besieged planet approaches its 2020 milestone, the universe appears to be playing a dark joke on humanity by sending five asteroids in two days, with a 2,700-foot space rock following a few days later.
The behemoth dubbed 2000 WO107, estimated to measure up to 0.51km in diameter, or roughly the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, will visit Earth (cosmically speaking) at 10.09 GMT ( 5:59 AM ET) Sunday November 29.
The visitor won’t stay long as, despite its enormous size, it travels at a whopping speed of 25.07 km per second, or roughly the equivalent of 90,000 km / h. For reference, the average bullet travels at around 4,500 km / h. It will also not be visible to most grounders as it is set up for what NASA considers a “close flyby” at a measly 0.02876 astronomical units (AU) from Earth – or 2,673,409 miles.
NASA defines a Near Earth Object (NEO) as any asteroid or comet that is within 1.3 AU of Earth.
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Meanwhile, there will be plenty of activity in our cosmic courtyard, with five asteroids predicted in the area on Monday and Tuesday alone.
On Monday, three space rocks, 2020 WN (9.5m diameter), 2020 VW2 (14m) and 2020 WC (10m) will fire beyond the Earth at 1.6 million kilometers, seven million kilometers and 1.6 million kilometers respectively. millions of kilometers.
The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 385,000 km, but NASA considers all objects within a radius of 7.5 million kilometers (or 19.5 times the distance from the Moon) worthy of monitoring, just in case. where someone succumbed to a sudden course correction.
Tuesday will see the 47-meter 2017 WJ16 and 31-meter 2020 TJ8 pass the planet at two million kilometers and 6.4 million kilometers, before the next round of space rocks hums our planetary defenses.
NASA and other space agencies around the world keep an eye on 24/7, but there is a lot of sky to cover, so humanity sometimes misses these close flyovers, as is the case with a new record-breaking close flyby that took place this month.
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