Data from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies indicated that “an asteroid approaching Earth is twice the length of the Burj Khalifa. This asteroid is considered the largest asteroid that approached the planet in 2022.”
According to the center, asteroid 1989 JA is estimated to be 1.7 kilometers long. An asteroid of this size can cause widespread destruction upon its collision with the Earth, but the probability of it colliding with the Earth is very weak, because on Friday it will approach our planet at a distance of four million kilometers, and this is equivalent to ten times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The chief planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, Frank Marches, noted that “the asteroid’s flight speed is about 48,000 kilometers per hour. This speed is 17 times higher than the speed of a bullet in the air. That is, it can orbit the Earth in 45 minutes.”
And the astronomer from Palomar Observatory in Southern California, Eleanor Helen, had discovered this asteroid in 1989. Therefore, scientists know it well, and its orbit has been accurately determined by specialists, and in light of that it can “pose a danger to Earth” because it is among the asteroids of the Apollo group, whose orbits can intersect with the Earth’s orbit.