Giant Asteroid With 'Hazardous Potential' Will Be In Closest Distance To Earth In 89 Years
An asteroid, about 3,280-feet in size, known as "7482 (1994 PC1)," will fly by Earth on Tuesday.
The asteroid will come within 1.23 million miles of Earth, which will be the closest this specific asteroid has gotten since Jan. 17, 1993, when it came around less than 700,000 miles from Earth, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The next time this asteroid is projected to come within this close to Earth again will not be until Jan. 18, 2105, at an estimated 1.46 million miles, NASA said.
The asteroid is also classified as "potentially hazardous" for its "potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth," according to NASA. Although there are many asteroids that are classified under this title.
Multiple asteroids pass by Earth weekly. They would be a threat to the planet if they were to move into a direct path. This has led NASA to want to be more prepared and launch, "The Double Asteroid Redirection Test," or “DART.”
DART is set to collide with a 525-foot wide asteroid called Dimorphos next fall at 15,000 miles per hour as a test, to see if the mission can successfully push an asteroid off its course.
“DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid. DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space,” NASA said.
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