Asteroid larger than Statue of Liberty & 3 others to fly by Earth on Sept 29 & 30

Humans might have to sit at the edge of their seats on September 29 and 30 as four sizeable asteroids will fly by close to Earth on these two days. On September 28, NASA revealed on its official website that an 11-meter long, telephone pole-sized 2020 SY4, flew by close to Earth within. It was only 724,000km away from Earth’s surface and was travelling at a speed of 16.12km/s or 2,736kph.( 21 times as fast as a bullet) Read on to know more.

Read | Asteroid 2020 SY4 to swing by Earth on September 28, says NASA

Asteroid larger than Statue of Liberty

NASA has revealed on its Asteroid watch widget that one of the four asteroids that will be flying by Earth, will be larger than the Statue of Liberty. All of these four space rocks measure between 11 meters and 110 meters in diameter. The behemoth Asteroid 2020 PM7 will fly by on September 29 and will be 370 feet or 110 meters in height. 

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It will shoot past at the minimum distance of 0.0191 astronomical units or 2.8 million km's from Earth. 2020 PM7 will be closest to Earth at 14:16 UTC, which is 7:16 am Tuesday, Pacific Time (PT) or 9:30 pm Tuesday, Indian Standard Time (IST). To better understand the size of the ginormous rock, try to imagine 30 Volkswagen Beetles end-to-end. Thus, it is about one-and-one-fifth times as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

Read | China all set to launch an asteroid mining robot in November

Asteroids shooting past Earth on September 30

On September 30, three space rocks will be flying by Earth. Asteroid 2020 SV5, measures 20m in diameter which is a little over the size of a typical bowling alley. It will shoot past Earth at a distance of 1.2 million km. Asteroid 2020 SQ is 12m in diameter and will swerve us, earthlings, at a distance of 2.1 million km. Finally, last but not least is Asteroid 2020 SO2, measuring 37m will miss Earth by 6.9 million km.

Read | NASA spacecraft to touch down on asteroid Bennu's surface in historic mission

Asteroid 2020 SW's dangerously close flyby on Sept 24

According to a report on NASA’s JPL website, Asteroid 2020 SW flew by close to Earth on Sept 24. At its closest approach, the space rock was 0.00019 astronomical units away from Earth’s surface. In miles, this is 17661.6 miles. This was one of the closest asteroid approaches in recent times. This distance was also well below many of the communications satellites orbiting our planet. The closest approach occurred over the southeastern Pacific Ocean.

Promo Image Source: Pixabay