Watch Live: Bus-sized asteroid to make an extremely close encounter with Earth on July 7

In just a few hours from now, a newly discovered asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth. Dubbed 2022 NF, this asteroid was discovered just last week and will be followed by another space rock named 2022 NE. According to NASA, both the asteroids are the size of an average bus and will swing by our planet at speeds over 40,000 km per hour.

How to watch asteroid 2022 NF live?

The asteroid 2022 NF was discovered on July 4, 2022, by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii and has an estimated size of about 23 feet or seven meters. Slightly bigger than 2022 NE, this asteroid will fly by at a speed of Earth 40,000 km per hour. Interestingly, it will come as close as 80,000 km from our planet which is just 23% of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. 

You can watch this close encounter by tuning in to the live webcast by Virtual Telescope on YouTube. The live event is scheduled to begin at 2:30 am on July 7.

Asteroid 2022 NE

Earlier today, another asteroid 2022 NE, which was also discovered last week, flew past Earth from a distance of 1,35,000 km. The asteroid was slightly smaller than 2022 NF as it measured around 20 feet of six meters. However, neither of the asteroids would break the record of the closest distance to Earth as NASA's records show that this record belongs to 2020 QG.

According to NASA, this space rock came within 2,950 km from our planet while crossing over the Indian Ocean in August 2018. 

So far, astronomers have observed over one million asteroids in our solar system, out of which 30,000 cruise past our planet occasionally. In order to ensure that none of these space rocks prove catastrophic, NASA last year launched its first-ever mission to test a new technique of planetary defence. Named Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the mission involves a spacecraft that will intentionally collide with an asteroid in less than three months.