NASA reveal what you need to know about asteroids
An asteroid known as 2021 BO1 made a surprise appearance in the early hours of the morning. The space rock came so close to Earth that it crossed the orbit of the Moon.
NASA analysis revealed that it came within just 0.7 lunar distances of our planet.
One lunar distance is the length between Earth and the Moon, or 384,317 kilometres.
So 0.7 lunar distances means the asteroid came within just 269,022 kilometres of our planet.
NASA analysis revealed the asteroid was travelling at a staggering 10.2 kilometres a second, or more than 36,000 kilometres an hour.
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That means 2021 BO1 could complete an orbit of Earth in less than an hour.
For reference, it takes the Moon more than 28 days to orbit Earth.
The space agency considered the space rock to be a Near Earth Object (NEO).
NASA said on its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website: “NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.
“The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.
“The giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed from an agglomeration of billions of comets and the left over bits and pieces from this formation process are the comets we see today.
“Likewise, today’s asteroids are the bits and pieces left over from the initial agglomeration of the inner planets that include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
“As the primitive, leftover building blocks of the solar system formation process, comets and asteroids offer clues to the chemical mixture from which the planets formed some 4.6 billion years ago.
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“If we wish to know the composition of the primordial mixture from which the planets formed, then we must determine the chemical constituents of the leftover debris from this formation process – the comets and asteroids.”
Even if the asteroid was on a collision course with our planet, it would pose no risk whatsoever.
NASA revealed the asteroid to be just five metres in length.
At that size, the space rock would simply burn up as it hit the atmosphere of Earth.
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