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A massive " planet killer " asteroid will make a very skinny glide slope to Earth today ( June 27 ) , safely zipping past our planet at around 58,000 mph ( 93,000 km / h ) . The " potentially wild , " hatful - size target is one of the largest place rocks to pass nigh to Earth in more than a century — and you could watch the close encounter live .
The asteroid , 2011 UL21 , is a approximate - Earth asteroid , meaning its compass occasionally invest it within 1.3 astronomical units ( AU ) ofthe sun — or roughly 1.3 times the average distance between Earth and the sun .
The predicted orbit of potentially hazardous asteroid 2011 UL21.
It orbits our home star once every three years . Based on past observations , the space rock is somewhere between 1.1 and 2.4 miles ( 1.7 to 3.9 kilometers ) wide , accord toSpaceReference.org , meaning it ’s bigger than 99 % of known near - world asteroids , consort to theEuropean Space Agency(ESA ) .
2011 UL21 is likely at least 10 times smaller thanthe big space rock to ever hit Earth , the Vredefort asteroid , and around five times smaller than the rock thatwiped out the dinosaursaround 66 million years ago .
However , while any likely impingement from 2011 UL21 would be less utmost than these historic collisions , the asteroid still has the potentiality to cause scathe on a continental scale and eject enough junk into the atmosphere to actuate significant climatic variety , which is why it is considered a " major planet killer . "
The predicted orbit of potentially hazardous asteroid 2011 UL21.
Asteroid 2011 UL21 will zoom past at around 4.1 million stat mi ( 6.6 million km ) from Earth , which is close than it ’s been to our planet for at least 110 year , accord tosimulations by NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory(JPL ) . At this distance , it is considered apotentially wild objectbyNASA . However , this is still around 17 time far aside from our planet thanthe moon .
Although the space rock-and-roll poses no threat to Earth — either now or in the future — it is interesting because it ’s credibly one of the 10 biggest asteroid to put across within 4.7 million miles ( 7.5 million km ) of our satellite since 1900,Gianluca Masi , an astrophysicist and director of the Virtual Telescope Project ( VTP ) , wrote in arecent statement .
Related:‘Planet cause of death ' asteroid are hiding in the sunshine ’s public eye . Can we turn back them in meter ?
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you may watch 2011 UL21 ’s close glide slope thanks to afree livestreamfrom the VTP , which will share the view of the asteroid from the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Ceccano , Italy . The flow begins at 4 p.m. ET on June 27 , with the stuffy approach predicted to occur 15 minutes later .
You may also be able to spot the asteroid in the dark sky with adecent telescope . It will be at its shining on June 28 and June 29 and should be seeable from the Northern Hemisphere if you knowwhere to calculate . At its brightest , it will have a similar brightness level to Proxima Centauri — the nearest known champion to the sun , concord to VTP .
2011 UL21 will not get this close to Earth again until 2089 , when the space rock will get to within 1.7 million miles ( 2.7 million km ) of our planet — more than two and a half times close to us than its current approach , according to JPL model .
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There is zero probability that any known major planet killer asteroid will slam into Earthfor at least the next 1,000 age . However , there will be some close birdcall with smaller asteroid in the next few years . For example , the asteroid Apophis , which is big enough to wipe out an total city , willzip past Earth closer than some satellites in 2029 .
