A House-Size Asteroid Zipped by Earth Today

[Judi Lynn]

By Hanneke Weitering 2 hours ago Science & Astronomy

It was less than half the distance to the moon.



An artist's depiction of a potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid.(Image: © ESA/P. Carril)

An asteroid the size of a house gave Earth a close shave today (April 18), passing nearer to our planet than any other space rock will for the rest of this year — that is, as far as we know.

Named 2019 GC6, the asteroid was discovered by NASA's Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, just last Tuesday (April 9), nine days before it flew by Earth. The giant rock made its closest approach this morning at 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), when it whizzed by our plant at a safe distance of about 136,000 miles (219,000 kilometers), or slightly more than half the average distance between Earth and the moon.

At the time, the asteroid was traveling at a relative speed of about 12,600 mph (20,300 km/h), according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA estimated that the speeding space rock's diameter is "within a factor of two" of 49 feet (15 meters), which means it may be up to 98 feet (30 meters) wide.

NASA has classified 2019 GC6 as a "potentially hazardous" near-Earth object (NEO), but that doesn't mean that Earth was in danger when it flew by. The agency uses that term for any NEO that comes within 5 million miles (8 million km) of Earth's orbit and is massive enough "to cause significant damage on Earth," according to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

More:
https://www.space.com/near-earth-asteroid-2019-gc6-flyby.html