NASA Asteroid family Mars and Jupiter
This artist concept catastrophic collisions between asteroids located in the belt between Mars and Jupiter and how they have formed families of objects on similar orbits around the sun. NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA has detected a total of 16 asteroids that are headed for Earth this week. The largest asteroid from the group is bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

According to the agency’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), Earth will be visited by a total of seven asteroids on Oct. 8. As noted by CNEOS, these asteroids are 2019 TU, 2019 TW1, 2019 RK, 2019 TC1, 2019 SB6, 2019 TM and 2019 TS.

These asteroids will arrive starting at 2:27 a.m. EDT until 10:36 a.m. EDT on Tuesday. Although most of these asteroids will approach Earth from very safe distances, one of them is expected to fly really close to the planet. According to CNEOS, 2019 T1 will zip past the planet from 0.00378 astronomical units or roughly 351,000 miles away, which is just slightly greater than the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

The next group of asteroids will enter Earth’s neighborhood on Oct. 9. These asteroids, namely 2019 TV1, 2019 TZ and 2019 SL7 will visit Earth between 9:16 a.m. EDT to 10:28 a.m. EDT during this date.

With diameters ranging from 29 to 38 meters, the approaching asteroids are relatively small. 2019 TV1 and 2019 TZ will fly past Earth from millions of miles away while 2019 SL7 will approach Earth from a distance of only 0.00363 astronomical units or about 337,000 miles away.

Only one asteroid will zip past Earth on Oct. 10. Known as 2019 SX5, this asteroid is the largest one from the group with an estimated diameter of 140 meters. It will approach Earth at 7:06 pm EDT on Oct. 10 from a distance of 0.04533 astronomical units or about 4.2 million miles away.

On Saturday, Oct. 12, Earth will be visited by four asteroids. Compared to 2019 SX5, the asteroids 2019 TN1, 2019 SK8, 2019 SV9 and 2019 SE2 are significantly smaller with diameters averaging from 25 to 90 meters.

These four asteroids are expected to visit Earth’s vicinity between 11:42 a.m. EDT to 6:19 p.m. EDT on Saturday.

The last asteroid that will fly by Earth this week is called 2019 TT1. This 38-meter-wide asteroid will approach Earth on Oct. 13 at 2:24 p.m. EDT from a distance of 0.00744 astronomical units or about 692,000 miles away.

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