Asteroid Bigger Than The Empire State Building Will Come Close Next Week

Read more: Visit website

An asteroid as wide as the Empire State Building is tall will fly by Earth on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, precisely 11 years after its discovery. For such a large object to come close to Earth is rated as a once-per-year event, but it won't pose any threat.

A 1,500-foot (450-meter) asteroid will pass closest to Earth at 5:27 UTC — 00:27 a.m. EST — on Wednesday, coming within 1.4 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) of the planet — about 5.7 times farther than the moon. The moon is, on average, 238,855 miles/384,400 kilometers from Earth.

Any object that comes within 4.6 million miles of Earth and is larger than 492 feet — capable of causing significant regional damage in the event of impact — is referred to as a "potentially hazardous object" by NASA.

The asteroid, called 2020 XR, was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 2 telescope in Hawaii on Dec. 4, 2020. The Pan-STARRS Project is designed to detect Near-Earth Objects that could threaten Earth.

Discovered on Jun. 19, 2004, Apophis is a stony, S-type asteroid that orbits the sun every 324 days and approaches Earth every decade. Initially feared to potentially collide with Earth in 2029, 2036, or 2068 with a 2.7% chance, further radar observations in 2021 confirmed that it would not impact Earth during those dates. It's named after the Egyptian demon of chaos, Apophis.