The cosmic body will reach our planet on July 24 and NASA confirms GO20 will come close enough for the pass to be classified a “close approach”.
The giant asteroid 2008 GO20 is rushing towards the Earth. Its length can be twice as long as the famous Big Ben. The cosmic body is moving at a speed of 8.18 km per second, that is, 29,500 kilometers per hour, and will reach the Earth this month.
The asteroid will approach the minimum distance to our planet on July 24 at 15:13.
NASA said: “As they orbit the Sun, near-Earth objects (NEOs) can occasionally approach close to Earth.
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“Note that a ‘close’ passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or tens of millions of kilometres.”
In this particular case, GO20 will pass the Earth from a “close” but safe distance of 0.03283 astronomical units.
The minimum distance of an object from the planet will be 4.91 million kilometers. Scientists assure that it is completely safe.
A single astronomical unit marks the average distance from our planet to the Sun – about 93 million miles (149 million km).
The asteroid will, therefore, pass virtually unnoticed from a distance of more than 3.05 million miles (4.91 million km) – more than 12 times as far as the Moon.
But there is still good reason to pay attention to this asteroid’s flyby.
GO20 is a fairly big object that is comparable in size to some of London’s iconic landmarks.
NASA’s estimates suggest the asteroid measures somewhere in the range of 302 to 688ft (92 to 210m) across.
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In the diagram, the Earth’s orbit is shown in blue, and asteroid 2008 GO20 is white, the dotted line shows the orbits of Mercury, Venus and Mars.
Image Credit: Getty