There are millions of asteroids flying through our solar system, and three particularly massive ones will fly by Earth this week, according to NASA.
Don’t panic, though. NASA estimates that the closest one missed Earth by a comfortable 2.2 million miles, or nearly 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon.
On Monday Asteroid 2012, DK31 passed us at a distance of around 3 million miles. This space rock is estimated to be 450 feet across or roughly the width of a 40-story skyscraper, and it passes Earth’s orbit every few years.
A second skyscraper-sized asteroid, this one known as 2006 BE55, crossed Earth’s orbit on Tuesday. It comes within our orbit every four or five years, and this time came within a distance of around 2.2 million miles.
Finally, on Friday, March 3rd, an about 250-foot-wide asteroid will pass by Earth at a distance of 3.3 million miles. This space rock is known as 2021 QW. It occasionally comes close to Earth but is not quite wide enough to be considered a potentially hazardous asteroid or PHA as the first two are.
A PHA means that even while an asteroid doesn’t currently pose a threat to Earth, a change in its trajectory and a collision with it may result in significant damage.
NASA’s estimates indicate that no known asteroids are currently on a path to strike Earth for at least 100 years.
Astronomers are already developing strategies to prevent one from directly threatening our planet.
In order to change an asteroid’s orbital speed, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission recently crashed a rocket into an asteroid and demonstrated that an asteroid’s orbit may be significantly altered.
