2008 Asteroid KV2 set to pass close to Earth tonight

The 2008 KV2 massive asteroid is set to pass close to Earth the night of Thursday to Friday.

The potentially dangerous asteroid was spotted for the first time on May 2008 and it is the size of three football fields. The asteroid measures about 150 and 330 meters in diameter.

According to data from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), it is expected to reach the closest to our planet at 00:01 at a speed of 11.36 km/s or 40,900 km/h.

It will only return near Earth again in 2o22 twice more.

Potentionally Hazardous object (PHO)

According to NASA “a potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object whose orbit brings it within 4.7 million miles (7.5 million km) of Earth’s orbit, and is greater than 500 feet (140 meters) in size.”

The 2008 KV2 asteroid is expected to come as close as 6.7 million kilometers to the Earth’s orbit.

 

JPL

 

NASA further added that “No known asteroid poses a significant risk of impact with Earth over the next 100 years. The highest risk of impact for a known asteroid is a 1 in 714 chance of impact by an asteroid designated 2009 FD in 2185, meaning that the possibility that it could impact then is less than 0.2 percent.”

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