Stadium-size asteroid to make closest approach to Earth
Editor's Note: The livestream event meant to show Asteroid 2020 XR making its pass by Earth has been canceled due to weather.
(NEXSTAR) — A day after a small asteroid impacted Earth on Tuesday, another, slightly larger asteroid is set to come into view — this one, however, is just passing by.
Early Tuesday morning, NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office warned of a very small asteroid that was expected to come into our atmosphere and "create a harmless fireball" over eastern Russia.
Wednesday's asteroidal visitor is "safely" flying by, according to The European Space Agency.
Asteroid 2020 XR was discovered exactly four years ago, the ESA explains, though NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says it was first observed in 2013. Initially, ESA says astronomers believed it had a small chance of colliding with Earth in 2028. A further review of older observations and existing data found instead that 2020 XR will not impact Earth, at least not in the next century.
While 2020 XR poses no current threat to us, it does fall within the range of being a potentially hazardous object: it is larger than 150 meters (366 meters, or about 1,200 feet) and will pass within 4.6 million miles at its closest approach (more specifically, within 1.37 million miles).
According to NASA's JPL tracking, 2020 XR will cross through Earth's orbit Wednesday and then head out toward Mars' orbit. After crossing Mars' path in February 2025, the asteroid will swing way out into space, but not quite into Jupiter's orbit, before coming back toward us in 2028.
For now, we can watch the asteroid pass by using an average telescope, according to ESA, unless the weather restricts our view. Wednesday morning, telescopes in Manciano, Italy, were expected to track 2020 XR at its closest point to Earth, but rain in the area canceled the event.
In case you're concerned, asteroids are frequently passing by Earth. Wednesday alone, NASA shows four other asteroids — ranging in size from a bus to an airplane — will pass within the potentially hazardous range listed above. None, however, pose a threat to Earth.
And if they did, NASA recently proved it can take on an asteroid. In 2022, NASA crashed an autonomous spacecraft into an asteroid in the world’s first planetary defense mission. The asteroid posed no threat to Earth, but NASA determined it was able to interrupt its course with the spacecraft.
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