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An asteroid as large as 2,000 feet across will speed past Earth later this month

A large area rock recognized to scientists as 481394 (2006 SF6) will make its closest strategy to Earth in simply a few weeks. NASA scientists imagine it will cross our energetic little sphere on November 20th, coming inside 0.029 astronomical models of Earth. That’s shut sufficient that NASA considers the rock to be a probably hazardous object, nevertheless it appears to be like prefer it’s going to overlook us this time round.

I do know, 0.029 certain seems like an in depth miss — and within the grand scheme of issues, you may argue that it's — however astronomical models (au) are large. 1au is the typical distance between the Earth and our Sun, which is almost 93 million miles. That means 2006 SF6 will nonetheless be round 2.7 million miles away from our planet when it passes by.

Researchers who've been monitoring the trail of the asteroid since its discovery over a decade in the past imagine the rock is roughly 1,000 to 2,000 feet huge. It’s not the type of planet-killing area rock that you just’d see in an end-of-the-world apocalypse flick, nevertheless it may nonetheless do some severe harm if it have been on a collision course with Earth.

But earlier than you go wringing your fingers over this explicit area rock, it’s value remembering that this flyby is pretty mundane. The asteroid’s closest strategy will nonetheless depart it over ten occasions farther away than the space between Earth and the Moon. The most harmful near-Earth objects cross by a lot nearer, typically even throughout the Moon’s orbit of our planet.

2006 SF6 will stay at a comparatively secure distance for now. It’ll be a number of hundred years earlier than the rock comes this shut once more, so, in the meanwhile, we gained’t actually have to fret about it.

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