Asteroids have been found flying closely past Earth recently, but what are they? An asteroid is a terrifying small, rocky object out in space travelling at massive speed and when seen in a telescope, it appears as a point of light, according to NASA. Most asteroids are found in a ring between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter called the Asteroid Belt. These celestial objects are the remains of the period during which our solar system formed, over 4.6 billion years ago. Asteroids can sometimes make close approaches with Earth without any danger of impacting the surface. A similar asteroid is on its way towards the planet today, NASA has warned.

Asteroid 2022 TT2 key details

An asteroid, named Asteroid 2022 TT2, is on its way towards Earth today, October 21. The asteroid was spotted by NASA’s Defense Coordination Office, which is responsible for monitoring the skies and keeping a watch on various Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). The Asteroid 2022 TT2 is expected to make its closest approach to the planet at a distance of 2.5 million kilometers today at a speed of 43380 kilometers per hour, according to NASA.

The Planetary Defense Coordination Office classifies NEOs as potentially hazardous if they come within around 7.5 million to 8 million kilometers of Earth.

The Asteroid 2022 TT2 belongs to the Aten group and orbits the Sun, taking around 333 days to complete one trip. During this orbit, its maximum distance from the Sun is 191 million kilometers and minimum distance 90 million kilometers, according to the-sky.org.

Did you know?

NASA’s space-based telescope called NEOWISE has identified hundreds of others while scanning the skies at near-infrared wavelengths of light from its polar orbit around Earth. But the NEOWISE wasn’t always built for this purpose.

It was a data retrieval project to get back asteroid detections and characteristics from WISE, a NASA observatory launched back in 2009. In 2011, the coolant aboard the spacecraft ran out, which is necessary as the spacecraft used cryogenically cooled detectors that made them sensitive to infrared light. Since the spacecraft’s infrared sensors were working efficiently, NASA repurposed it to track various Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) such as asteroids, and it was named NEOWISE.