While we hear about space rocks all the time, this one is quite interesting. It is estimated as being somewhere between 53 and 130m in size and well based on that is at least the same size if not bigger than the Sydney Opera House.
This NEO or Near-Earth Object is an asteroid that is officially known as 2020 UL3. It is speeding towards Earth at around 11.20 kilometers per second according to 7News. While it almost definitely won’t hit us this time around or anytime soon, at some point, it could end up being quite close to our planet.
7News noted that this interesting space rock will be whizzing past our planet at around 350,961 kilometers sometime in November in the year 2089 which is a very long time from now. Right now, this asteroid is not something we need to be too concerned over and we especially shouldn’t be losing sleep over it. That being said, it could change things in small ways depending on how its passing plays out through the years.
Daily Star wrote as follows on this topic:
UL3 has been identified as an Apollo asteroid, which is an asteroid that crosses Earth’s orbit as it passes through space.
It is also classed as a Near-Earth Object, which according to NASA, is a term used to describe comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.
To be classed as an NEO an object has to come within 1.3 astronomical units.
That may seem close, but asteroid UL3 is currently estimated to pass through space at a distance of 0.039 astronomical units from Earth.
To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent to 3,625,276 Earth land miles.
What do you think about all of this? Isn’t it mind-blowing the things zooming around outside of our home planet? I for one am always blown away.