An asteroid about the size of a football field is expected to fly close to Earth this coming September. There is no need to worry about it, as its chances of hitting our planet is just 0.014 percent.
Incoming Asteroid
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) risk list tracks all objects with a non-zero impact probability. On the list is asteroid 2006 QV89, a space rock roughly the size of a football field that is expected to fly close to Earth in September.
It is actually ranked fourth on ESA’s risk list, but it is the only one on the top 10 even with a chance of impacting Earth in 2019. That said, by the agency’s Palermo scale rating, 2006 QV89 has a value of -3.63, and according to the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, objects with a rating of less than -2 reflect no likely consequences.
2006 QV89 is 131 feet in diameter, and on Sept. 9, the asteroid will pass 4.26 million miles away from the Earth. Just for comparison, the moon is about 238,000 miles away from the Earth.
Asteroid 2006 QV89
Asteroid 2006 QV89 was actually first observed in 2006 by the Catalina Sky Observatory in Arizona. However, it was not the first time that the space rock flew close to Earth. It flew close to Earth twice in the 1950s, once in the 1960s, once in the 1970s, and twice again in the 1980s. According to ESA, after September, the next time that it will fly close to Earth will be in 2032.
Most of space rubble are orbiting the sun around Mars and Jupiter. They are rocky, airless bodies that are actually the remnants of when our solar system was created 4.6 billion years ago. So far, the current asteroid count is at 795,893, with sizes ranging from just 33 feet across to 329 miles in diameter.
