Asteroid the size of Great Pyramid of Giza will skim past Earth today
- The asteroid 2024 JZ will pass Earth today within just 0.028 astronomical units
- Experts insist that this is perfectly safe and that 2024 JZ will pass harmlessly
A huge asteroid almost the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza will skim past Earth today, NASA has warned.
The 120m (394ft) asteroid, scientifically named 2024 JZ, will pass the planet at a staggering speed of 56,000 mph (90,123) – 65 times faster than a bullet.
But there is no need to head for the doomsday bunker just yet since this asteroid will safely past Earth at a distance of 2.6 million miles (4.2 million km).
While this might sound far away, the asteroid is still classed as a ‘near-Earth object’ (NEO) by NASA.
Dr Edward Bloomer, senior astronomer at Royal Greenwich Observatory, told MailOnline: ‘Today’s passing is not a concern at all, this is not the kind of thing we should be worrying about.’
The asteroid 2024 JZ will skim past Earth today at a speed of 56,000 mph (90,123) – 65 times faster than a bullet (artist’s impression)
NASA writes: ‘NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.
‘Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.’
A NEO is defined as any object that comes within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) (120.8 million miles) of the sun and hence within 0.3 AU (27.8 million miles) of Earth’s orbit.
Asteroids are defined as ‘potentially hazardous’ if they comes within 0.05 astronomical units (4.65 million miles) of Earth and are larger than 140 meters (459 feet) in diameter.
Even though 2024 JZ will be at a perfectly safe distance at just 0.028 AU from Earth, this is considered relatively close in astronomical terms.
At 120m (394ft) in diameter this asteroid is nearly as big as the Great Pyramid of Giza (pictured) and is larger than Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty (file photo)
What is a near-Earth object?
A near-Earth object (NEO) is a space rock – usually an asteroid – that passes close to the Earth.
A NEO is defined as such when it comes within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) (120.8million miles) of the sun and hence within 0.3 AU (27.8million miles) of Earth’s orbit.
Almost all NEOs are near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), although there are such things as near-Earth comets (NECs) too.
There will also be an even closer miss happening this evening as a small asteroid named 2024 JT3 passes within just 12,000 miles (19,300 km) of Earth.
However Juan Luis Cano, of the ESA’s Planetary Defence Office, reassured MailOnline that Earth is ‘absolutely’ safe.
Mr Cano says there is ‘no possibility of hitting the Earth.’
He adds: ‘In any case, a 5-10 m object would typically disintegrate in the atmosphere just releasing some small meteorites to ground.’
NEOs are monitored by a network of professional and volunteer astronomers who detect objects passing through the solar system.
Through their efforts, dozens of NEOs are spotted each month and their paths are predicted with a high degree of accuracy.
In fact, large objects such as 2024 JZ passing through Earth’s orbit are so routine that the ESA lists this asteroid as a ‘very frequent event’.
The overwhelming majority of these objects burn up in the planet’s atmosphere and are seen by us as shooting stars, rather than hitting the ground.
Each year the Earth even passes through several dense clouds of debris left by comets which create meteor showers like this month’s Eta Aquariids.
What makes NEOs different from these meteors is that they are large enough to potentially pass through the atmosphere undestroyed.
And while today’s close encounter is not a concern, Dr Bloomer says that there is a risk of an impact at some point in the future.
‘We’re kind of gambling every day,’ he said.
‘If 2024 JZ were on a threat intercept course, that would be a big problem because it’s a big old chunk of rock moving pretty quickly.’
During the 1908 Tunguska Event, an asteroid less than half the size of 2024 JZ exploded over an area of Siberian forest, flattening 830 square miles of trees.
Likewise, Dr Bloomer points out that the Chelyabinsk meteor which damaged 7,200 buildings and injured 1,491 people in Russia was only 20m (65 feet) in diameter.
Most worrying was the fact that the Chelyabinsk meteor was previously undetected when it collided with Earth.
As Mr Cano explains, while there is currently no relevant threat, ‘the actual problem resides on the fact that there are still many NEOs to be found.’
According to NASA, there are 34,914 known NEOs in our solar system (data correct as of May 9)
Luckily, NASA has already invested in methods to protect the planet from oncoming asteroids.
In November 2021, the space agency launched the DART mission which sent a satellite ploughing into the side of Dimorphos, an asteroid around 6.8 million miles (10.9 million km) from Earth.
This test showed that by hitting an asteroid with a small satellite early enough, the small impact could push it into a safe orbit by the time it reaches Earth.
Dr Bloomer says: ‘If you can get to it faster and further in advance then you actually need to make a smaller impact to make a bigger deflection over time.
‘Whereas if you’ve got something that you don’t detect until particularly late, then you’ve got to make more efforts to deflect it in time.’
While this mission may have only been a rehearsal, it proved that the planet could be saved with enough prior warning.
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