Earth is about to have an in depth encounter with an area rock.
On Sunday (June 25), the near-Earth asteroid 2023 MU2 will pass inside 134,000 miles (215,000 kilometers) of Earth, or simply about 60% of the common distance from our planet to the moon. While this flyby is fairly close in astronomical terms, the space rock is not prone to pose any threat to Earth or spacecraft in its orbit. In accordance with the NASA/JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the asteroid is estimated to be between 13 and 29 feet (3.9 and eight.8 meters) in diameter, roughly the dimensions of a house or three-story constructing. 2023 MU2 will make its closest approach on June 25 at 7:19 p.m. ET (2319 GMT).
While some of these asteroids may be fairly hard to identify on your individual, luckily you possibly can watch the approach live due to a free telescope livestream. The Virtual Telescope Project, hosted by Rome-based astronomer Gianluca Masi, will probably be streaming the flyby of asteroid 2023 MU2 at 7 p.m. ET (2300 GMT) on Sunday. Watch it live here courtesy of the Virtual Telescope Project or on the project’s YouTube channel.
Related: What are asteroids?
Asteroid 2023 MU2 was discovered just days ago on June 16 and confirmed by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center on Thursday (June 22).
It is from an outlier. Many space rocks pass close by Earth each week without incident; the car-size asteroid 2023 MW2 passed by Earth today, the truth is, at a distance of just 77,000 miles (124,000 km).
Despite innumerable headlines making these events out to be dangerous or frightening, you mustn’t worry an excessive amount of. CNEOS has cataloged over 32,000 near-Earth asteroids to this point, and none are known to pose a threat to Earth in the subsequent century, in keeping with NASA.
That is to not say an impact is not possible, given an extended enough timeline. In 2013, a near-Earth asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in what has been called a “get up call” for near-Earth object detection and planetary defense.