Stargazers would be interested in keeping their eyes up above the sky after the sun sets in on Wednesday, the April 19 to spectate a close shave of our planet with an asteroid.
This asteroid was discovered three years ago and is named 2014 JO25 is almost 650 meters in diameter. The asteroid is expected to pass within 1.1 million miles or in other words just five times far from the planet Earth as the moon is.
The asteroid is expected to pass our planet after having looped around the Sun. Post which, 2014 JO25 will continue to past Jupiter before heading back to the center of the Solar System.
However, NASA assures there is not any need to worry as the 2000 foot wide space rock will not hit our planet. This celestial phenomenon is worth gazing as no asteroids in the past 400 years have ever come this close to Earth. Moreover, it is not even expected that any space rock will ever come this close to the Earth’s orbit for another 500 years as well.
Though small asteroids do keep passing by our planet but something this big and close does not occur in less than a decade. The last time, an asteroid came this close was in the year 2004, named Toutatis -- five kilometers (3.1 miles) passed Earth. However, the next big and close asteroid passage is not expected to happen until 2027 when an asteroid by the name of 1999 AN10 will fly by the Earth at a distance of about 236,000 miles.
Image Credit: IGN.com
Any information taken from here should be credited to skymetweather.com
