An asteroid NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) estimates is around 3,400 feet in diameter will pass near the Earth traveling 43,754 miles per hour. Or 12 miles per second. The massive asteroid is the equivalent of 1 kilometer or 0.62137 miles long.
The huge space rock known as 7842 (1994 PC1) should pass safely by the Earth on January 18th. It was discovered in 1994 and this is the closest it will get to our planet for 200 years.
NASA categorizes the zooming asteroid as a “potentially hazardous” near-Earth object (NEO). Any space rock more than 460 feet long that orbits within 4.6 million miles of the Earth, is viewed as a possible threat. And according to earthsky.org this asteroid will get within 1.2 million miles of us.
It will pass within five times the diameter of the moon at its nearest point to Earth.
Massive asteroid traffic report
The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), managed by NASA’s California-based JPL tracks and monitors all asteroids and comets that come near the Earth. Several dozen near-earth objects fly by every year.
