Huge asteroid safely passes close to earth

An asteroid three times the size of New York’s Empire State Building narrowly missed Earth’s orbit this morning, astronomers said.

An asteroid roughly three times the size of New York’s Empire State Building made a relatively close pass by Earth this morning, astronomers have said, but was far enough away to avoid actual disaster.

One kilometre in size, Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) flew by Earth around 8.51am, according to NASA, which had been tracking the object for decades through its planetary defence systems.

The comet had been classified as “potentially hazardous” because of its size and relatively close fly-bys to our planet.

Near-Earth #asteroid 1994 PC1 (~1 km wide) is very well known and has been studied for decades by our #PlanetaryDefense experts. Rest assured, 1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet 1.2 million miles away next Tues., Jan. 18.

Track it yourself here: https://t.co/JMAPWiirZhpic.twitter.com/35pgUb1anq

— NASA Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) January 12, 2022

“Near-Earth #asteroid 1994 PC1 (~1 km wide) is very well known and has been studied for decades by our #PlanetaryDefense experts,” NASA tweeted last week.

“Rest assured, 1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet 1.2 million miles away next Tuesday, January 18.”

An asteroid roughly three times the size of New York’s Empire State Building made a relatively close pass by Earth this morning.

Researchers said the asteroid came around 0.01325 Astronomical Units, or 1.93 million kilometres away from the Earth’s atmosphere.

That distance didn’t pose any threat to the Earth, they said.

The last time the asteroid was this close to Earth’s orbit was 89 years ago, when it flew roughly 1.1 million kilometres (0.00752 Astronomical Units) from the planet.

The next time its anticipated to come this close to Earth is in 2105, when NASA predicts it will fly 2.25 million kilometres (0.01556 Astronomical Units) away from Earth.