Tonight Asteroid Crossing, Closer Close from the Moon
An asteroid with a width of 15x39 meters will fly close to Earth on Saturday (10/2) evening. The distance from the earth is only one fifth the distance from the earth to the moon. But that means 63 thousand kilometers from the surface of the earth.
According to the American Space Agency (NASA), the asteroid with the name 2018 CB is the second small asteroid that will approach Earth this week.
"Asteroids of this size do not often approach this close to our planet, perhaps only once or twice a year," said Paul Chodas, manager of the Near Earth Object Implant Studies Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
NASA says that 2018 CB will pass the Earth safely. He will travel 39,000 miles, close enough to space.
On Tuesday last, 2018 CC has passed the Earth with a distance of about 114,000 miles. In fact, Earth's own natural satellites are at an average distance of 240,000 miles from Earth.
The two asteroids were discovered on Feb. 4 by astronomers at the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Last year, more than 2,000 previously unknown asteroids were found on Earth, according to Chodas.
Meanwhile, NASA has detected about 1,500 new objects near Earth in a year a year later. Small asteroids are commonplace through the planet and the moon several times a month, but the inhabitants of the Earth need to learn them.
"This is a reminder that asteroids can pass very close to our planet and it is important to examine these objects as they approach," Chodas was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
The good news is that Earth does not have a significant risk of being hit by asteroids that have been known for at least 100 years. But in 2029 later, an asteroid named Apophis which is estimated at 300 meters will pass a distance of one-tenth distance between Earth and the moon.