Keep an eye on the sky as asteroid set for flyby
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.— Another asteroid is headed our way — the second this week — but there’s no need to worry.
The newly discovered space rock will pass within 64,000 kilometres of Earth on Friday afternoon. That’s less than one-fifth the distance to the moon.
Designated 2018 CB, the asteroid is estimated at between 15 and 40 metres in size, possibly bigger than the one that exploded over Russia five years ago this month.
The manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, Paul Chodas, said asteroids this size usually don’t come this close — just once or twice a year.
It will be the second time this week an asteroid buzzes us. On Tuesday, an asteroid passed within 184,000 kilometres, slightly more than halfway to the moon.
Both of this week’s asteroids were discovered Feb. 4 by astronomers at the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. Last year, more than 2,000 previously unknown nearEarth asteroids were discovered, according to Chodas.
A whopper asteroid named Apophis — estimated at more than 300 metres — will pass at just one-tenth the distance between Earth and the moon in 2029. In the meantime, astronomers are on the lookout for asteroids lurking in the cosmic shadows.
“These asteroids are simply too small to be detected until they get really close to our planet,” he wrote.