Asteroid as large as 5 cruise ships will soar past Earth this weekend
Popular Science...
An asteroid as large as five cruise ships is barreling towards Earth at 5.6 miles per second. Civilization thankfully isn’t in any imminent danger, but the cosmic debris will still come close enough to possibly spot using only a pair of strong binoculars.
The asteroid (152637) 1997 NC1 will pass closest on June 27 at around 7:15 a.m. EDT. It , when it will only be about 1.59 million miles away—over six times the distance between Earth and the moon. Discovered nearly two decades ago, (152637) 1997 NC1 likely measures somewhere between 820 and 1,800 yards-wide based on its reflective sunlight, although astronomers say it may be a bit smaller.
Stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere will be able to see the space rock during its approach in dark enough conditions, while those living in the Southern Hemisphere can catch a glimpse as it begins departing this corner of the solar system. That said, seeing 1997 NC1 may be a bit more difficult thanks to the lunar cycle.
“A close approach to Earth by an object this size only occurs every few years, although this time the bright nearby moon might impede its observability at closest approach,” European Space Agency Planetary Defense Office information specialist Juan Luis Cano said in a statement.
Earth is no stranger to asteroid encounters, with the oldest evidence of a cosmic impact dated to around 3 billion years ago. Luckily, truly devastating events are comparatively rare from a geological standpoint. The space rock that led to the dinosaurs’ extinction slammed into the present-day Gulf of Mexico about 66 million years ago, while the last major example known as the Tunguska Event occurred in 1908. The roughly 180-foot-wide meteor’s explosion above a remote region of Russia released the energy equivalent of three to 50 megatons of TNT while leveling about 830 square miles of Siberian forest.
The post Asteroid as large as 5 cruise ships will soar past Earth this weekend appeared first on Popular Science.