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An asteroid the size of a school bus is heading our way, but despite being much closer than many of the satellites orbiting Earth, the space rock should be safely close by Thursday, NASA says.
The newly discovered asteroid will reach 13,000 miles from Earth, scientists said this week. The closest approach will occur Thursday morning over the southeastern Pacific Ocean.
Once it’s gone, the asteroid won’t return to Earth’s neighborhood until 2041.
Scientists estimate the asteroid to be between 15 and 30 feet. By asteroid standards, that’s considered negligible. Asteroids this size hit Earth’s atmosphere and burn up once every year or two, said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There could be up to 100 million of these small asteroids out there.
Considerably larger asteroids are the real threat. The good news is that these are easier to detect much earlier than in a few days.
Asteroid 2020 SW, as it is known, was discovered last Friday by the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
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