Asteroid tracker: NASA monitor 2021 AU space rock to skim past our planet this week

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Asteroid experts at US-based space agency NASA have confirmed how the anomaly dubbed 2021 AU will make an extremely close cosmic flyby tomorrow evening. At its MOID (Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance), the rogue space rock will be a ‘mere’ 0.00887 AU (Astronomical Units) away from our world.

An astronomical unit is a unit of length used by space scientist to describe the approximate distance from Earth to the Sun.

This measurement is therefore roughly equivalent to 93 million miles (150 million km).

The asteroid is consequently expected to safely skim past our blue planet at 824,518 miles (1,326,933km) distant.

This may seem to some to be an extraordinarily excessive distance for the extraterrestrial object to be categorised as a Near Earth Object (NEO) by NASA.

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However, this term is technically correct, especially when the inconceivable scale of space is taken into consideration.

To put this into celestial context, the average distance between Earth and its Moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 km).

As its name indicates, the recently-discovered 2021 AU will be at its closest to Earth on Thursday, January 6, at 11.27pm GMT (3:27pm PT), before it continues it elliptical orbit around the solar system.

Unfortunately, despite the relatively unusual nature of its flyby, the asteroid cannot be viewed from Earth with commercially-available equipment.

NASA has actually released a surprising quantity of data concerning this – and similar asteroids – on its Centre for Near-Earth Studies (CNEOS) site.

Experts and amateur astronomers alike can confirm the errant asteroid is barrelling towards Earth’s vicinity at 2,236mph (12.23km/s)

To provide some perspective, this is far faster than an average speeding bullet, which can travel at 1,800mph (2,896kmh).

With their cutting-edge equipment, NASA trackers also boast the capability of accurately estimating the asteroid’s size.

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This space rock has been measured to be up to 250ft (77m) in diameter.

For perspective, this is approximately half the height of Egypt’s famous Great Pyramid.

As a result, were this asteroid to hit a city – which it categorically will not – this would spell apocalyptic disaster for millions of inhabitants.

Yet despite this asteroid’s remarkable statistics, this really pales into insignificance when compared to one of the year’s most exciting space rock flybys.

Asteroid 2001 FO32 will in the coming weeks safely sweep past our planet at an incredibly fast pace.

When the asteroid is at its closest, astronomers should – weather permitting – be able to detect its drift in front of the stars in real-time.

The biggest known asteroid to pass in 2021 will hurtle past Earth on Sunday, March 21.

Asteroid 2001 FO32 is estimated to be about 0.6 miles (1 km) in diameter, which is comparable in length to San Fransisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

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