Dangerous whale-sized asteroid to fly past Earth soon

A potentially dangerous space rock the size of a blue whale will fly past Earth on September 17. The giant asteroid, named 2024 ON, will pass our planet at a distance equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon by 2.6 times.

According to NASA, the space object has an estimated diameter of 220 to 480 meters. It will rush past the Earth at a speed of 31,933 km/h, which is about 26 times the speed of sound, LiveScience writes.

Scientists estimate that at maximum approach, the asteroid will fly about 1 million kilometers to Earth. By space standards, this is quite close but still far enough away to threaten a collision with our planet.

NASA considers any space object that comes within 193 million kilometers of Earth to be a "near-Earth object". The agency also classifies as "potentially hazardous" any large object that flies within 7.5 million kilometers of our planet.

The US Space Agency tracks the location and orbits of approximately 28,000 asteroids. The surveillance is carried out using the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a group of four telescopes that scan the entire night sky every 24 hours.

Space agencies around the world are already working on possible ways to deflect dangerous asteroids if they are flying directly toward Earth. As a reminder, on September 26, 2022, the DART spacecraft collided with the dangerous asteroid Dimorphos, changing its orbit. NASA called the mission a success and even stated that it exceeded all expectations.

China is also working on asteroid redirection missions. By hitting 23 Long March 5 rockets at the asteroid Bennu, which will hover within 7.4 million kilometers of Earth's orbit between 2175 and 2199, scientists hope to divert the space rock even further from its current trajectory.

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