Three “Potentially Dangerous” Asteroids to Closely Pass by Earth This Month

Three asteroids that have been deemed as being “potentially dangerous” will pass by our planet this month of September at a fairly close distance. The space rocks will travel by us on September 9^th, 11^th, and 22^nd. With that being said, let’s take a quick look at these three asteroids.

Asteroid 2010 RJ53 is flying by our planet today (September 9^th) at a distance of about 366,000 kilometers away (227,422 miles). To put this into better perspective, our moon is located at a distance of around 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles) which means that 2010 RJ53 will be closer to us than our moon. This asteroid, which measures 774 meters (2,539 feet), was discovered on September 10, 2010. It completes a full orbit around our sun every 402 days. At its furthest distance, it is 224 million kilometers away from the sun (139 million miles), with its closest approach measuring 95 million kilometers (59 million miles).

On September 11^th, asteroid 2021 PT will travel within 4.9 million kilometers from Earth (3 million miles). This asteroid measures approximately 137 meters in diameter (449 feet).

Then on September 22^nd, a third asteroid will closely pass by Earth. Asteroid 2021 NY1 will fly by within a distance of 1,498,113 kilometers (930,884 miles). To understand this better, it will be approximately 3.89 times further than the moon is to us. This space rock, which has been categorized as both a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as well as a near-Earth object (NEO), is expected to measure anywhere between 130 and 300 meters in diameter (427 to 984 feet). This asteroid has an orbit of 0.01 Astronomical Units (AU) or approximately 1.5 million kilometers from our planet (932,000 miles) – one AU is the distance of Earth from our sun. Additionally, when 2021 NY1 passes by us on the 22^nd of the month, it will be the closest that it has been to our planet in nearly a century and it won’t get close to us again until about the year 2105 when it is expected to be approximately 2.65 million kilometers away (1.65 million miles).

While these three asteroids will be fairly close to Earth when they travel through space, there is no need to worry or hide in a bunker as they aren’t expected to hit our planet.