NASA’s tracking five asteroids making close approaches this month, ranging from car-sized to house-sized.
None pose threats, but NASA’s handy Asteroid Watch dashboard lets us keep tabs as they whiz by. The dashboard lists flyby details like size, date, distance – vital cosmic stats.
For reference, anything over 150 meters that comes within 7.5 million kilometers earns “potentially hazardous” status. So these space rocks don’t quite meet that threshold.
First up on January 23rd – two asteroids dubbed 2024 BA1 and 2021 BL3. The house-sized BA1 will cruise by at 3.3 million kilometers out. Meanwhile BL3, which is airplane-sized, will pass at nearly twice the distance.
More looming flybys include a plane-sized rock on the 24th, a bus-sized one on the 25th, and a car-sized asteroid on the 26th. Each over 4 million kilometers out, but still classed as “close approaches.”
Now, while these might seem uncomfortably close for comfort, take heart! On January 21st, astronomers detected an itsy bitsy asteroid three hours before it actually impacted Earth near Berlin.
Dubbed 2024 BXI, the little space rock harmlessly disintegrated as a brief fireball after entry. While tiny, spotting it early was an achievement for impact preparedness.
So between ongoing tracking of near-misses and detecting real-time hits, NASA’s got earthly backs. These approaching asteroids may inspire sci-fi visions of doom, but current science knows their business.
Just another friendly reminder we’re always buzzing through space with leftover debris! But for now, no need to duck and cover – just look up and enjoy the show.
