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Anasteroiddiscovered earlier this month will reach its close point to Earth on tomorrow ( Jan. 27 ) , when it will soar through the sky at a aloofness closer to us than the moonlight .
you may watch the airplane - size asteroid as it sails just 220,000 mile ( 354,000 kilometers ) from Earth — more than nine one-tenth of the fair distance between our planet and the moon — on aVirtual Telescope Project live feedfrom 12:15 p.m. EST . The fly space rock will reach its closest point to Earth at 12:30 p.m. EST , accord toNASA .
Asteroid 2024 BJ (orbit shown in white) will zoom close past Earth (orbit show in light blue) on Jan. 27.
stargazer first detect the up to 121 - understructure - wide ( 37 meters ) asteroid , dubbed 2024 BJ , on Jan. 17 . Theydocumentedtheir discovery the following day , after calculating that the rock will safely soar past our major planet without incident .
The asteroid will fly close to the moon just before 9 a.m. EST before zooming past Earth three and a half hr later on at an estimated speed of 14,200 miles per hour ( 22,850 km / h ) . Although 2024 BJ will have a " very close encounter " with Earth , the rock-and-roll flummox " no risks at all for our major planet , " according to theVirtual Telescope Project .
Related : How NASA correctly predicted that a tiny asteroid would burn up over Germany , hours before it happen
2024 BJ is a near - Earth asteroid of the Apollo type , which means itsegg - shaped orbit crosse that of Earthto reach its tight point to the sun before turning around and extending out toward the main asteroid smash between Mars and Jupiter .
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Apollo asteroids , of which over 1,600 are currently known , make up the absolute majority of the population of Earth - crossing andpotentially risky asteroids . But fear not : 2024 BJ is nowhere near bombastic enough to be considered hazardous . In fact , Earth looks like safe from asteroid — at least from cataclysmal , " planet - grampus " ones measure more than 0.6 mile ( 1 km ) across — for the next 1,000 years .
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