In the next few hours several asteroids will pass close to our planet
Within just over 48 hours, five asteroids will have whizzed past our planet, the largest of which will be the size of a stadium but will not pose a threat to our planet.
It is always very exciting when an asteroid passes close to our planet, imagine if 5 of them whizzed by in just over 48 hours, from the night of 16 September to 18 September.
As often happens, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the US civil government agency responsible for the space program and aerospace research of the United States, provides us with the most accurate information about these passages, in this case through the website of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL is a federally funded research and development centre owned by NASA but managed by the California Institute of Technology, which mainly deals with the design, development and construction of unmanned space probes.
Five asteroids will pass close to Earth soon
In addition to this, however, as anticipated, it constantly provides detailed reports on the possible passages of asteroids near our planet. The first of the series that will "graze" us in these days has actually already passed at the closest point to the Earth, and it is also the one that will reach the shortest distance among these 5.
It is the asteroid 2024 RQ, approximately 20 metres in size, or with dimensions comparable to those of an airplane, which on the morning of 16 September, at 10:37 passed approximately 524,000 km from our planet at a speed of 6.7 km/s.
This is a near earth asteroid (NEO) obviously, that is, an asteroid whose orbit can intersect that of the Earth, of the Aten type, a subgroup characterised by an orbit with a semi-major axis smaller than an astronomical unit.
Following at 10:19 today on Tuesday 17 September it will be the turn of the asteroid 2024 ON, as big as a stadium, or 290 metres, which will pass 1,000,000 km from Earth at a speed of 8.88 km/s. Obviously this is also a NEO but of the Apollo type, or belonging to that subgroup that has the peculiar characteristic of having an orbit with a semi-major axis larger than one astronomical unit and a perihelion lower than the aphelion of the Earth.
Continuing further, still on 17 September but at 15:31 it will be the turn of the asteroid 2024 RY10. Compared to the previous ones, this one will be decidedly smaller, just 16 metres, or with dimensions comparable to those of a house, and it will also get closer. In fact, it will pass 1,780,000 km from our planet at a speed of "just" 5.29 km/s. Like the first in this series, this one will also be an Aten asteroid.
They are all NEO asteroids but with different characteristics
Just over an hour later, the Apollo 2024 RR16 asteroid will whizz by, reaching its closest point from Earth at 4:55 p.m. today on 17 September, when it will whizz by at a speed of 8.61 km/s and at a distance of 5,810,000 km.
Again, this asteroid will not be particularly large, about 16 metres. Finally, the series will end on the night of September 18 at 3:43 a.m., when the asteroid 2024 RZ13 will cross the sky at a speed of 8.65 km/s, while remaining quite distant from our planet, a good 6,360,000 km from us.
This one will also have dimensions comparable to those of a house and will be an Amor asteroid, that group of asteroids characterised by an orbit that externally touches that of the Earth but never intersects it, at any point. These are the asteroids that will populate the regions closest to our planet in the coming days, continue to follow Meteored for any updates.