NASA says a “potentially hazardous” asteroid about 3,400-feet wide is making its way past Earth toward the end of this month. The largest asteroid of 2022 is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on May 27 – about 2.5 million miles, traveling nearly 30,000 mph.
Asteroid 7335 (1989 JA) has been classified as “potentially hazardous” due to its size and within a 4.6 million mile distance from Earth’s orbit around the sun. The asteroid is expected to come within about 10 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
“These objects (potentially hazardous asteroids) are defined as asteroids that are more than about 460 feet in size with orbits that bring them as close as within 4.6 million miles of Earth’s orbit around the Sun,” according to NASA. “CNEOS continuously monitors all known near-Earth objects to assess any impact risk they may pose.”
SpaceReference.org says 1989 JA orbits the sun every 861 days or 2.36 years, and its about 1.8-kilometer diameter makes it larger than 99 percent of asteroids and compares to Mount Everest in size.
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