An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier will zoom past Earth on Tuesday just inside the orbit of the moon.
The space rock poses no danger, as its nearest approach will be a comfortable 202,000 miles distant. But it will be the closest flyby of an asteroid this large since 1976, according to NASA.
Asteroid 2005 YU55 has a name only a scientist could love. They’re also loving the chance to stare at the nearly round, slowly spinning chunk of space debris as it flies by at some 30,000 mph.
“It will be scanned and probed and scanned some more,” said Marina Brozovic, an asteroid researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Starting Friday, Brozovic will ping the approaching asteroid with radar from giant dishes at Goldstone, Calif. She wants to map every crater and boulder while refining estimates of the path, which swings inside the orbit of Venus and then out near Mars, crossing Earth’s orbit.
Meanwhile, telescopes in Arizona and Hawaii will analyze light reflected from the asteroid to determine what it’s made of.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.