A huge 1km-wide asteroid is
hurtling towards Earth, prompting astronomers to label it “potentially hazardous”.
But don’t pack for Mars just yet – the giant space rock, ‘2014 JO25’, is
expected to pass by our planet safely. According to NASA the encounter on April
19 will be the closest the asteroid comes to Earth in 400 years, and no
projected future encounters will be as close for at least another 480 years.
However, another fly-by is expected in 2091 and the space rock also makes
regular close approaches to Mercury and Venus.
An asteroid of this size
won't have as close an encounter with Earth for more than 10 years. "The
next known flyby by an object with a comparable or larger diameter will occur
when 800-meter-diameter asteroid ‘1999 AN10’ approaches within one lunar
distance in August 2027," NASA said.
The asteroid was discovered
by the Mt. Lemmon Survey in May 2014. Astronomers describe it as a “bright
object” and believe it will be among the best targets for radar observations
this year.
2014 JO25’ has been
designated as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) by the Minor Planet
Center. PHA’s are asteroids larger than 100 meters that can come closer to
Earth than 7,495,839km (about 4,658,000 miles), which is equal to 19.5 ‘Lunar
distances’.
Despite 2014 JO25’s
designation as a PHA, projections predict it will pass by Earth at a safe
distance of about 1.8 million km (4.57 lunar distances). Two other big
asteroids, ‘2003 BD44’ and ‘1999 CU3’, which are both nearly 2km wide, will
also pass by our planet shortly, however they won’t come as close as 2014.
Astrowatch report 1,781 PHAs
were detected on Sunday, however – happily – none of them is on a projected
collision course with Earth.