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Earth has recently escaped the danger from a giant 2200-foot asteroid 2012 KY3, which came extremely close to Earth at a distance of 2.97 million miles. Now, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has issued an alert about a massive asteroid hurtling towards Earth and it is set to come dangerously close.
The potential threat is from an asteroid named 2023 GZ, which measures 34 foot, size of a bus. It is expected to come very close to Earth on April 15, which is tomorrow, according to information provided by NASA. As per NASA’s JPL, if any asteroid comes within 4.6 million miles or 7.5 million kilometres of Earth, the space agency red-flags it as potentially hazardous and issues an alert. Will this 34-foot-wide asteroid 2023 GZ pose a danger to Earth? Here is what NASA says.
34-foot wide asteroid
As per the asteroid data tracking page by NASA, Asteroid 2023 GZ will fly past the Earth tomorrow, April 15 at a close distance of just 473,000 miles. The distance is almost double the average distance between Earth and Moon which is about 239,000 miles. It is coming at a blistering speed of 30952 kmph, NASA’s CNEOS data revealed.
The asteroid 2022 GZ was detected only recently, on April 12, 2023 and it belongs to the Apollo group. Sky.org said that this asteroid makes one orbit around the Sun in 439 days. The next expected close approach of this giant space rock is on September 30, 2053.
Tech tracking asteroids
To detect the danger, NASA has established the NEO Observations Program, which is tasked with finding, tracking, and characterizing NEOs, and identifying those that may pose a hazard to Earth. Ground-based telescopes and NASA’s NEOWISE spacecraft are currently used to locate NEOs.
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