Stadium-sized asteroid, 2 others to whiz past Earth in June: Know details

NASA is tracking three giant asteroids that will skim past Earth thi month. A number of large space rocks hurtling through the solar system will be approaching planet Earth in comparatively close range. NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site at the Centre for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) reveals that they will be fast approaching the Earth this month.

Know about the three asteroids

Asteroid 2002 NN4: June 6

Asteroid 163348 (2002 NN4) is the first of the large asteroids that will breach the Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID) of 0.05 AU (7.48 million kilometres). The space rock is believed to be travelling at a speed of 5.2 km a second or 11,200 miles per hour. According to the dailystar.co.uk, it is estimated to be between 250m and 570m (820ft and 1870ft) -- so it could be taller than the Empire State Building (443m or 1453ft) and the London Eye (135m or 443ft) combined.

The International space agency has classed the asteroid as an Aten asteroid, which is a space rock following a very wide orbit around the Sun.

Scientists do not think the asteroid will collide with Earth but will keep an eye on it in case it enters Earth's atmosphere by chance. Asteroid 163348 (2002 NN4) is expected to zoom past Earth at 12:50 pm (IST) on Sunday this week.

Asteroid 2013 XA22: June 8

Following the monster 2002 NN4’s close-Earth approach, the next in line is asteroid 2013 XA22, which will breach the MOID on June 8 at 3:40PM UTC. Its approach will be significantly closer than that of the 2002 NN4, coming to 0.019 AU (2.93 million kilometres) of Earth. Asteroid 2013 XA22 is a far smaller space rock – it has peak diameter of 160 metres, and will fly by at relative velocity of 24,050 kmph.

Asteroid 2010 NY65: June 24

The asteroid 441987 (2010 NY65) has also been studied extensively due to its proximal orbit to Earth, after having been discovered a decade ago. The asteroid 2010 NY65 will cross Earth on June 24, at 6:44AM UTC. It will breach the MOID at 0.025 AU (3.76 million kilometres) from Earth. The 2010 NY65 asteroid falls somewhere between the 2002 NN4 and 2013 XA22 asteroids in terms of diameter, with peak size of 310 metres in its diameter. The asteroid 2010 NY65 will have the highest relative velocity of 46,400 kmph among the three large asteroids set to come the closest to Earth during June.