The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released a list of asteroids that will pass dangerously close to Earth in the coming days. Despite their small size, asteroids, comets, and meteors play a significant role in our solar system.
These celestial bodies serve as a fossil record of the early days of our solar system, with 3,865 known comets and 1,278,065 confirmed asteroids. These rocky, airless debris, known as minor planets, were formed during the early stages of the solar system’s creation, which dates back 4.6 billion years.
On April 5th, a bus-sized asteroid named 2023 GE will pass by Earth at a distance of only 5,68,000 miles. A day later, asteroid 2023 FQ7, which is the size of a house, will fly by at a distance of 3,570,000 miles. Meanwhile, asteroid 2023 FZ3, as wide as an airplane at 150 feet, is hurtling towards Earth at a speed of 67656 kilometers per hour and will pass by on April 6th at a distance of 4,190,000 kilometers.
NASA has identified over 30,000 asteroids of various sizes in the area surrounding our planet, known as “Near Earth Objects” (NEOs), with more than 850 asteroids larger than one kilometre. However, none of them are expected to pose a threat to our planet for the next century.
According to NASA, asteroids are a result of the solar system’s development. When a massive cloud of gas and dust collapsed billions of years ago, most of the material fell into the core of the cloud, which eventually formed the sun. As the dust in the cloud condensed, some of it formed the planets.
The Planetary Defense Coordination Center recently issued a statement, suggesting a “small probability” of an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool colliding with Earth on February 14th, 23 years from now. Nonetheless, NASA is continually monitoring and tracking these space rocks, developing plans and technologies to deflect any potential asteroid impacts in the future.
