Today is a unique day as four asteroids are all set to make close approaches to Earth. Although it is safe to say that people on Earth will remain unharmed as all of these space rocks are expected to pass by Earth at a safe distance. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office is responsible for keeping an eye on the sky for rogue asteroids which could potentially threaten Earth. The organisation has now red-flagged Asteroid 2022 UC7 as it heads for close approach with the planet.

Asteroid 2022 UC7 hurtling towards Earth today, Oct 24

NASA has warned that Asteroid 2022 UC7 is on its way towards Earth travelling at a staggering speed of 35676 kilometers per hour. It will make its closest approach to the planet today, October 24, at a distance of just 348,000 kilometers. That is nearly as close to the planet as the Moon! According to NASA, Asteroid 2022 UC7 is almost the size of a bus with a width of nearly 32 feet.

According to the-sky.org, Asteroid 2022 UC7 belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids which are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.

How is an Asteroid Orbit Calculated?

An asteroid’s orbit is computed by finding the elliptical path about the sun that best fits the available observations of the object using various space and ground-based telescopes such as NASA’s NEOWISE telescope and its brand-new Sentry II algorithm. That is, the object’s computed path about the sun is adjusted until the predictions of where the asteroid should have appeared in the sky at several observed times match the positions where the object was actually observed to be at those same time.