Four asteroids, one bigger than Empire state building to pass Earth on January 18

Our planet will be hosting four more asteroids on January 18, after five other ‘potentially hazardous” asteroids skimmed past the Earth in just the first week of 2022. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, these asteroids will make their flybys at staggering speeds but at a safe distance from our planet. Interestingly, the list of incoming asteroids have sizes ranging from a few metres to one kilometre. 

The biggest one, named asteroid 7482 or 1994 PC1, is about one kilometer in diameter, making it over twice the size of the empire state building. The asteroid will make its flyby at a staggering speed of 69,200 kilometres per hour from a safe distance of 1.93 million kilometres from Earth. With its next closest approach predicted in 2051, this asteroid last came closest to our planet in 1933 when it was just 1.1 million kilometres away. First discovered by astronomer Robert McNaught in 1994 using the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, asteroid 7482 orbits the Sun every 1.5 Earth years. Designated ‘potentially hazardous’ by scientists, an asteroid of such magnitude is capable of striking Earth every 6,00,000 years, as per the scientists. 

Other asteroids hurtling towards Earth

Accompanying asteroid 7482 is asteroid 2021 BA, which is 17-37 meters wide and will fly by Earth at a speed of 32,724 kilometers per hour. This asteroid was last spotted near Earth last year in 2021. Another one approaching our planet on January 18 is asteroid 2022 AA6, which is 10-22 meters wide and will skim past our planet at a speed of 16,200 kilometers per hour. The last one is asteroid 2022 AW, which will come as close as 36 lakh kilometers near the Earth traveling at a speed of 36,468 kilometers per hour.

Asteroids that made their flybys so far

Until now, several asteroids have made their fly-bys of Earth in the first week of January 2022. Among those that went past our planet is asteroid 2021 YK on January 2 along with Asteroid 2013 YD48 which came within 5.6 million kilometers of Earth on January 11. On January 6, asteroid 2014 YE15, which was only 7 meters broad, went past Earth from within 7.4 million kilometers away whereas asteroid 2020 AP1, which was only 4 meters wide made its flyby on January 7.

(Image: Pixabay)