The NASA-tracked asteroids will all come hurtling within hours of one another on Wednesday, July 24. The first space rock, dubbed by NASA Asteroid 2015 HM10, will appear close to Earth around 7am BST (6am UTC). After that, Asteroid 2019 OD will close in on Earth closer than the Moon around 2.31pm BST (1.31pm UTC). The third and smallest of the three asteroids, 2019 OE, will barrel past Earth around 3.36pm BST (2.36pm UTC).
Luckily, NASA does not expect any of the three asteroids to strike the planet tomorrow.
But the asteroids will come flying by on so-called Earth Close Approaches, making them prime candidates for observations.
NASA said: “An asteroid’s orbit is computed by finding the elliptical path about the Sun that best fits the available observations of the object.
“That is, the object’s computed path about the Sun is adjusted until the predictions of where the asteroid should have appeared in the sky at several observed times match the positions where the object was actually observed to be at those same times.
“As more and more observations are used to further improve an object’s orbit, we become more and more confident in our knowledge of where the object will be in the future.”
Asteroid HM10 will be the first and farthest space rock to visit us tomorrow.
At its closest, the asteroid will come flying by from a distance of about 0.03135 astronomical units (au).
A single astronomical unit describes the distance between the Earth and the Sun or 93 million miles (149.6 million km).
This means Asteroid HM10 will approach the planet from just 2.9 million miles (4.68 million km).
When this happens, NASA said the space rock will be flying through space at around 21,273mph or 9.51km per second.
And based on NASA’s size estimates, the imposing object measures in the range of 167.3ft to 360.8ft (51m to 110m) in diameter.
An object this big would completely dwarf Big Ben’s clock tower in London, UK.
The second asteroid, 2019 OD, will be the closest of the three, approaching the planet from an estimated 219,375 miles (353,050km).
An asteroid’s orbit is computed by finding the elliptical path about the Sun
NASA
This distance is shorter than the average distance between the Earth and the Moon of about 240,000 miles (384,400km).
NASA estimates the asteroid will come hurtling in our direction at breakneck speeds of around 42,882mph or 19.17km per second.
Asteroid 2019 OD is the fastest and largest of the three space rocks, measuring somewhere in the range of 170.6ft to 393.7ft (52m to 120m).
The last of the three space rocks, Asteroid 2019 OE, will approach the planet from a distance of 0.00647 astronomical units.
This translates into roughly 601,424 miles (967,898km) or 2.52 times as far as the Moon is.
The asteroid only measures in the range of 75.5ft to 170.6ft (23m to 52m) across.
An object this big is comparable in size to Nelson’s Column in London or the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.
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