A goliath space rock is traveling at an astronomical speed of over 20,000 miles per hour.
A huge asteroid will come near Earth within the next week as per NASA reports. The 1,600 foot wide stone, officially known as 388945 or 2008-TZ3, is set to make its nearest approach on Sunday.
The goliath rock is going at an astounding velocity of 23,239 miles per hour. Live Science reports that at its nearest approach, its speed will be 30 times faster than the speed of sound – now that’s fast!
Fortunately, the space rock is only “close” in space-terms according to specialists. Actually, it is still around 3.4 million miles away from our planet and there should be no reason to worry.
Similarly to Earth, 2008-TZ3 circles the sun but it passes earth every few years. As a matter of fact, it came significantly closer about two years ago now. In May 2020, it passed Earth as close as around 1.6 million miles away. However, this year’s appearance will be its nearest one until way later into the future. May 2163 to be exact.
Our planet is surrounded by tons of asteroids at all times, however specialists keep an extremely close eye on their activities. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office examines our area with telescopes and details any projected risks.
Albeit a few of them, such as 2008-TZ3, are portrayed as hazardous, that designation, as indicated by space.com, is reached exclusively because of “complex calculation” connected with the size (larger than 492 feet or 150 m) and the distance at which the asteroid or object approaches Earth, along with other factors.
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Asteroids are being found at a higher occurrence but this is simply because of the improvements in technology. With upgrades to the tech utilized in telescopes, it is nothing unexpected that an ever increasing number of space rocks are being uncovered. This innovative advancement is the first line of defense from any expected threats from rogue asteroids as NASA keeps an arranged rundown of possible destructive space rocks.
Reports uncover that there is no prompt danger to earth regardless of many years of searching because the possibilities of impact are statistically implausible.
As for the asteroids like 2008-TZ3 – which is pretty much as large as The Empire State Building – is a danger to our planet, but NASA has defensive technologies and maneuvers set up.
One of which is the improvement of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test also known as DART. This is NASA’s first planetary defense shuttle which endeavors to collide with a space rock at an outrageous speed fully intending to divert the asteroid or object. The mission was launched in November of 2021 with the spacecraft expected to hit its target this September.
Asteroid 388945 (2008-TZ3) was discovered in 2008 and has an orbital period of 732 days. It will show up again in May 2024. 2008-TZ3 is categorized as an Apollo-class asteroid, which is just one of many asteroids documented. There are a total of 16,207 Apollo-class asteroids documented out of 1,208,466 total, which accounts for a mere 1.3% of objects. A few other potentially hazardous asteroids include but are not limited to Icarus which orbits the sun every 409 days, Midas which orbits the sun every 865 days, and Orpheus, a very small asteroid which orbits the sun every 487 days.