By John Ikani
A huge asteroid measuring 1.1 miles in diameter will pass Earth on Friday – and is the biggest space rock to come our way in 2022.
According to NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), The asteriod named 7335 (1989JA) will make a close approach on Friday, but miss our planet by about 2.5 million miles.
Measuring just over a half a mile (2,722ft) tall, the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest building in the world since it was built in 2004.
But Dubai’s enormous building pales in comparison to an asteroid that’s set to pass Earth this week.
While NASA has classed the asteroid as ‘potentially hazardous’, it’s extremely unlikely to pose a threat to our planet, passing by at a distance of about 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometres).
To put that into context, that’s nearly 10 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon.
Each year, NASA finds, tracks, and characterizes thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs), defined as being at least 153 yards (140 meters) in size—bigger than a small football stadium—that pose a risk to Earth.
The 7335 (1989 JA) asteroid orbits the Sun every 861 days (or 2.36 years), coming as close as 84.5 million miles and reaching as far as 244 million miles from the Solar System’s central star. It’s forecast to make 16 more flybys through 2194, but will not draw so close to Earth again for at least another 172 years, according to the CNEOS database.
