NASA has warned of an asteroid “the size of the Pyramid of Giza” that will approach Earth this Thursday, May 9, passing the planet at more than 900,000 kilometers per hour.
According to the space agency, the asteroid in question, scientifically named 2024 JZ, will have a diameter of 120 meters, which is almost the size of the Pyramid of Giza, which is 139 meters high. However, NASA wants to assuage its danger, saying it will “pass safely in front of Earth at a distance of 2.6 million miles (4.2 million km).”
“Today’s transition is not a concern at all, it’s not something we should be worried about,” Dr Edward Bloomer, director of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, told the Daily Mail.
According to NASA, near-Earth objects are comets and asteroids that the gravitational pull of nearby planets has pushed into orbits that allow them to get closer to Earth.
“Composed primarily of water ice containing dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system, while most rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.”adds the same source.
A near-Earth object is defined as any object that is within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) of the Sun and therefore within 0.3 AU. from Earth’s orbit.
Asteroids are considered “potentially hazardous” if they are within 0.05 astronomical units of Earth and have a diameter greater than 140 meters.
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