Apollo asteroid hurtling towards Earth at fearsome speed! Know details

After yesterday’s close call with Asteroid 2023 SF6, which passed Earth at a close distance of just 1.4 million kilometers, yet another asteroid approach is expected today. NASA has now revealed that an asteroid is expected to just about miss Earth. While it isn’t expected to impact the surface, it could pass by very closely. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), which is responsible for monitoring the skies against the threat of rogue asteroids, has issued a warning against the close approach of an asteroid designated as Asteroid 2023 SW6.

The space rock will make its closest approach to Earth today, September 28, and will miss the planet by a distance of 1.3 million kilometers. It has been tracked in its orbit, travelling at a speed of almost 42755 kilometers per hour.

While this asteroid is not a planet killer or as big as the dinosaur-killing asteroid, it is almost the same size as the Chelyabinsk asteroid which crashed over the Russian city in 2013, injuring over 1400 people and damaging 7000 buildings. It was just 59 feet wide! NASA estimates Asteroid 2023 SW6 to be around 57 feet wide, making it almost as big as a house.

Other details

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

Shockingly, this will be Asteroid 2023 SW6’s first-ever close approach to Earth in history. As per the details provided by NASA’s Small-Body Database Lookup, it will not make an extremely close approach to the planet in the near future.

Alvarez hypothesis

The Alvarez hypothesis, proposed by father and son duo Luis and Walter Alvarez in 1980, states that an asteroid struck Earth more than 65 million years ago and kicked off the extinction of dinosaurs. Although its impact crater has been presumed to be in Mexico, new light has now been shed on how it reached Earth. According to the English physicist Brian Cox, the asteroid, which formed a 140-kilometer impact crater, was thrown off its course by Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System.

“It is highly likely or possible that it was deflected into a collision course with Earth by Jupiter,” Cox said, highlighting that Jupiter is the creator and destroyer of worlds.