Enormous Asteroid named Florence will be flying past Earth on September 1. It's the largest object ever to pass Earth since NASA started tracking the asteroids flying past us.
While in layman's terms the asteroid isn't that big, measuring only 4.4 kilometers (2.7. miles) across, it's big enough that if it would collide with Earth, it would be capable of causing an extinction level event. However, there's no need to worry, while it will be flying by "close to Earth", it won't come closer than 7 million kilometers (around 4.4 million miles), and it's considered a safe distance. And just to give you a comparison how far is 7 million kilometers - our moon is roughly 400 000 km away, so it will fly past us at a distance of around 18 times further than the moon is from us.
Still, it's Florence's closest approach since 1890 and the next time it will come that close is some time after 2500.
"While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller," said Paul Chodas from NASA.
While in layman's terms the asteroid isn't that big, measuring only 4.4 kilometers (2.7. miles) across, it's big enough that if it would collide with Earth, it would be capable of causing an extinction level event. However, there's no need to worry, while it will be flying by "close to Earth", it won't come closer than 7 million kilometers (around 4.4 million miles), and it's considered a safe distance. And just to give you a comparison how far is 7 million kilometers - our moon is roughly 400 000 km away, so it will fly past us at a distance of around 18 times further than the moon is from us.
Still, it's Florence's closest approach since 1890 and the next time it will come that close is some time after 2500.
"While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller," said Paul Chodas from NASA.
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