An asteroid twice the size of the Empire State Building, a skyscraper in New York City, USA, is rushing towards Earth, which has been on our radar for decades, giving us plenty of time to calculate its path and ensure that it will not collide with our planet when it approaches Earth on Tuesday, January 18 .
As indicated by its name, asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 was discovered in 1994 and was classified as a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” due to its large size (3,280 feet or about 0.6 miles) and its proximity to Earth during previous flights according to scientists.
On January 18 at 4:51 p.m. ET, the asteroid, traveling at about 43,000 miles per hour (69,200 kilometers per hour) will come within 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) of Earth, just over five times the distance between Earth and the Moon, Digitartlends reported.
This means that unlike the folks at the popular Netflix movie Don’t Look Up, we don’t have anything to worry about. Once it does, it won’t return for another 200 years (in the meantime, astronomers will keep their eyes peeled for other potentially dangerous asteroids).
One of the exciting elements of next week’s flyby of 7482 1994 PC1 is that people with a primary telescope have a chance of spotting it as it passes quickly. EarthSky provides a detailed explanation of where to look and exactly what to look for as the asteroid is getting too close.
The possibility of a massive space rock colliding with Earth one day is a very real concern that prompted NASA to embark on the DART mission, which aims to directly collide a spacecraft with an asteroid to see if we can change its course. If the test achieves its goal of changing the asteroid’s path, the system could become an effective way for Earth to protect itself from any dangerous objects detected heading directly to Earth in the future.
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