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An asteroid up to three times orotund than a blue whale will zoom past Earth on Monday ( June 6 ) at more than 16,000 miles per hour ( 26,000 km / h),according to NASA .
Theasteroid , appoint 2021 GT2 , is predicted to safely miss our satellite by more than 2.2 million miles ( 3.5 million kilometers ) — or around 10 time the average aloofness betweenEarthand themoon . Astronomers first detected the blank rock last class and approximate its size at between 121 and 272 foot ( 37 to 83 meters ) astray . While that sounds reasonably big — between one and three times the length of ablue whale — it is n’t large enough to be considered a potential luck to Earth .
An artist’s illustration of a distant asteroid near Earth.
2021 GT2 is an Aten - socio-economic class asteroid , meaning it revolve thesunmore closely than Earth does ( once every 342 daytime , in this case ) , and its orbital way of life get across Earth ’s arena . uranologist have sex of more than 1,800 such asteroids — many of which are considered potentially risky .
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After June 6 , its next snug approach to Earth will pass on Jan. 26 , 2034 , when the asteroid overtake within 9 million miles ( 14.5 million km ) of our major planet — significantly far out than the approaching approach .
The asteroid is consider a near - Earth object — a term give to asteroid and comet that orbit within 1.3 galactic units of the sun . ( An galactic building block is the distance between Earth and the sun , about 93 million miles , or 149.6 million km.)NASAmonitors ten-spot of thousands of these object , predicting the trajectories of each one from present solar day to hundreds of years into the future . At the moment , astronomer do not recollect that any near - Earth physical object pose a threat to Earth .
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Still , scientists desire to be quick if a near - terra firma asteroid ’s trajectory should short vary follow an unexpected incident — say , one near - Earth asteroid colliding into another and shower declamatory chunks of rubble throughout thesolar scheme .
NASA is currently in the midst of testing whether a big asteroid could be knocked off course by crashing a rocket into it . In November 2021,NASA launch an asteroid - deflecting spacecraftcalled the Double Asteroid Redirection Test ( DART ) , which will thrash fountainhead - on into the 530 - animal foot - wide ( 160 G ) Dimorphos asteroid in autumn 2022 . The collision will not demolish the asteroid , but it may change the rock ’s orbital itinerary slenderly , Live Science previously report .
Originally published on Live Science .
