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Asteroid 2011 ES4 will be within just 30 percent of the distance between Earth and the Moon, scientists have confirmed. The asteroid is about 30 meters long, making it easily larger than a double-decker bus and will be located only 0.3 lunar distance, with a lunar distance as the measurement between Earth and the Moon, or 71,000 miles of our planet.
People like NASA have been monitoring the asteroid since it was first discovered in 2011, and today will be their closest approach to date.
According to NASA, the asteroid will be closest to our planet at 5:12 p.m. BST.
Astronomy site Space Weather said: “On September 1, asteroid 2011 ES4 will fly through the Earth-Moon system just 72,000 miles from Earth, close, but there is no danger of collision.”
NASA also revealed that it will travel at a staggering 8.2 kilometers per second, or 29,500 kilometers per hour.
Asteroid bigger than a double-decker bus will speed through Earth TODAY (Image: GETTY)
The orbit of asteroid ES4 (Image: NASA)
At this speed, it could travel around the Earth in an hour.
But while the asteroid will zoom in tonight, the distance from which Earth will buzz is uncertain, experts say.
Astronomers use an ‘uncertainty scale’ ranging from zero to nine, where zero means that the orbit is well known, while nine means that there is great uncertainty in its path.
Asteroid 2011 ES4 was only observed for four days after it was first detected on March 2, 2011, so it has an uncertainty of 7.
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What is a close approach? (Image: EXPRESS)
Astronomer Lance Benner, a NASA / JPL asteroid expert, told EarthSky: “The uncertainty indicates that you could lose the Earth by 0.08 au, which is much, much more than a distance between the Earth and the Moon.
“If that happens, and since the moon is nearly full right now, then none of the polls may find it during this flyby.”
According to NASA, asteroid 2011 ES4 is a NEO (Near Earth Object), which gives NASA the perfect opportunity to study the history of the solar system.
NASA said on its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website: “NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been pushed by the gravitational pull of near-orbiting planets that allow them to enter Earth’s neighborhood.
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Asteroids, comets and meteors (Image: EXPRESS)
“Scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as relatively undisturbed remnants of debris from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago.
“The giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) were formed from an agglomeration of billions of comets and the remnants and pieces of this formation process are the comets we see today.
“Likewise, today’s asteroids are the pieces left over from the initial agglomeration of the inner planets that include Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”
NASA says that the asteroid will not collide with Earth and its trajectory will take it away from our planet.
Asteroids in 2020 (Image: EXPRESS)
However, the potential damage it could cause if it struck would be similar to the Chelyabinsk incident.
In 2013, a 20-meter meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, smashing windows and injuring more than 1,000 people.
Space Weather added: “The space rock is 30 meters in diameter.
“For comparison, it is roughly the same size as the famous Chelyabinsk meteor of 2013, which smashed windows and toppled parts of buildings in six Russian cities when it exploded into the atmosphere east of the Ural Mountains.”
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