An asteroid discovered Tuesday (April 9) will make an extremely close, but harmless, pass by planet Earth today (April 11).
Asteroid 2024 GJ2 is roughly the size of a car and, since its discovery this week, astronomers have calculated that the space rock will graze by Earth at a mere-12 thousand-mile (19.3-thousand-kilometer) distance — that’s just three percent the distance between the Earth and the moon. 2024 GJ2 measures between 2.5 and 5 meters (8.2 and 16 feet), according to the European Space Agency (ESA). This means it’s an asteroid with a weight-class that would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, if its orbit happened to intersect ours more directly.
Astronomers believe the asteroid’s closest approach distance to Earth will occur at 2:28:42 p.m. EDT (18:28:42 GMT) on Thursday, at a distance of 7,641 miles (12,298 kilometers).
I can’t get any sense of how big this is. How many Emperor penguins would that be?
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