NASA tracks 220-foot asteroid heading towards Earth

NASA has issued an alert about 220-Foot Asteroid NF 2024, a space rock measuring 220 feet (67 meters) in diameter, currently speeding towards Earth at 45,388 miles per hour (73,055 kilometers per hour). This asteroid belongs to the Apollo group, a category of near-Earth asteroids that orbit the sun.
According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NF 2024 is expected to make its closest approach to Earth today, July 17th, at a distance of around 3 million miles (4.8 million kilometres). While this might sound alarming, it is actually far beyond the range of any potential impact.

NASA regularly monitors near-Earth objects (NEOs) and keeps a detailed database of their paths. An asteroid must be larger than 150 meters (492 feet) in diameter and come within 4.6 million miles (7.4 million kilometres) of Earth to be classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA). Given its size, NF 2024 does not meet these criteria and is not considered a threat.

In addition to NF 2024, It has reported that four other asteroids will be making close approaches to Earth in the coming days. These asteroids, designated BY15, NJ3, and MG1, will safely pass by at distances ranging from 2.64 million miles to 3.85 million miles (4.25 million kilometers to 6.2 million kilometers).

As part of its ongoing efforts to understand and mitigate asteroid threats, NASA is working on the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. This mission aims to test the effectiveness of using a kinetic impactor spacecraft to change the course of an asteroid in space, potentially providing a method to protect Earth from future asteroid impacts.

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