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NASA asteroid alert: An 853FT space rock is rapidly approaching Earth at 32,000MPH


trackers keeping the Earth safe from harm have their systems peeled on a large space rock dubbed 2010 CO1. The giant asteroid, tracked by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, is headed on an Earth Close Approach Trajectory. The space rock will approach our home planet in the wee morning hours of Saturday, September 14. NASA’s trackers estimate Asteroid CO1 will appear close to Earth around 4.42am BST (3.42am UTC).

Asteroid CO1 is a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” (PHA) and “Near-Earth Object” (NEO) confined to the inner solar system.

The space rock orbits the Sun on a trajectory similar to Asteroid 1862 Apollo and occasionally creeps close to Earth.

defines all PHAs as asteroids 500ft (150m) or larger on potentially threatening close approaches to Earth.

The space agency said: “A relatively small number of near-Earth objects pass close enough to Earth and are large enough in size to warrant close observation.

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“That’s because the gravitational tug of the planets could, over time, cause an object’s orbital path to evolve into an Earth-crossing orbit. This allows for the possibility of a future collision.”

Asteroid CO1 is a formidable object, measuring somewhere in the range of 393.7ft to 853ft (120m to 260m) in diameter.

At the upper end of that scale, the asteroid towers over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, US.

The asteroid is also more than twice as tall as St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

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And if that was not terrifying enough, the asteroid will fly past Earth at breakneck speeds of 14.36km per second or 32,122mph (51,696kph).

PHAs typically approach our homeworld from a distance of less than 0.05 astronomical units (au).

A single astronomical unit measures the distance from Earth to the Sun or 93 million miles (149.6 million km).

Asteroid CO1 is expected to drastically cut this distance down on Saturday to just 0.03561 astronomical units.

In other words, at its closest, the asteroid will safely miss us from a distance of 3.3 million miles (5.3 million km).

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This might seem like a lifetime away but on the grand scale of the cosmos this is a close brush with the rock.

NASA said: “As they orbit the Sun, Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth.

“Note that a ‘close’ passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometres.”

After its Saturday flyby, Asteroid CO1 will not return to Earth’s corner of the solar system until September 16, 2020.



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