Space fanatics and sky gazers are in for a treat this week as five massive asteroids will be flying past by earth.
According to a recent update by NASA’s asteroid tracking system, there will be five near-earth asteroid flybys this week. The US space agency revealed that the flybys began on September 11 and will last until September 18.
According to an India Today report, an asteroid headed toward Earth this week is bigger than the Statue of Unity, the tallest statue in the world.
The asteroid dubbed 2005 RX3 is moving at a staggering speed of 62,820 km per hour will come close to Earth on September 18. Reportedly, the object will come as close as 47,42,252 kilometers to the Earth.
Notably, the asteroid last visited Earth in 2005 and will return to Earth in March 2036 as per NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which has been tracking the object in space.
Apart from 2005 RX3, four more asteroids are also on a close approach to Earth according to their orbital movements tracked by NASA.
The four asteroids which are headed toward Earth this week are 2020 PT4, 2022 QD1, 2022 QB37 and 2022 QJ50.
As per NASA, the 2020 PT4 asteroid will come as close as 71,89,673 km to Earth at a speed of 39,024 km per hour. 2022 QD1 is nearly 130 meters in size and is expected to zoom past Earth at a blazing speed of 34,200 km per hour on September 16.
2022 QB37 will approach Earth on September 18 and 2022 QJ50 will be on a course towards Earth by the end of this week.
For the unversed, asteroids are rocky fragments formed during the solar system's formation some 4.6 billion years ago. According to NASA JPL, an asteroid is classified as a near-Earth object when its distance from Earth is less than 1.3 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.