A "bus-sized" asteroid being tracked by NASA will zoom safely past the Earth on Wednesday as both celestial objects make a close approach while orbiting around the sun.
The space rock, known as 2024 VM1, will come within around 193,000 miles of our planet at around 11:47 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or 6:47 p.m. Eastern Time, on November 6, figures from NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) database show.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website states that the asteroid measures approximately 37 feet across. The CNEOS database, however, provides a range of potential sizes for the asteroid. This data indicates that the space rock could measure anywhere between around 30 feet and 66 feet across.
At the time of its close approach, the asteroid will be traveling around 19,300 miles per hour relative to the Earth, the CNEOS figures show. This is roughly nine-and-a-half times as fast as a rifle bullet.
Scientists are constantly monitoring the sky to detect previously unidentified near-Earth objects (NEOs) and track the movement of known ones for planetary defense purposes.
2024 VM1 is one of roughly 36,000 NEOs that scientists have identified to date. This is a term used to refer to any astronomical body orbiting the sun that passes within 30 million miles of our planet's orbit.
The vast majority of these NEOs are asteroids—most of which are small—although there are a handful of comets included in this category as well.
Stock image: Artist's illustration of an asteroid flying past the Earth. The space rock known as 2024 VM1 will make a close approach to our planet on Wednesday. Stock image: Artist's illustration of an asteroid flying past the Earth. The space rock known as 2024 VM1 will make a close approach to our planet on Wednesday. Nazarii Neshcherenskyi/iStock/Getty Images PlusMore than 2,300 of the known NEOs are categorized as "Potentially Hazardous," based on their orbits and larger sizes. Specifically, they have orbits that are predicted to come within 4.6 million miles of Earth's path around the sun and are estimated to measure more than 140 meters (around 460 feet) across.
Potentially Hazardous objects are large enough to produce significant damage on at least a regional scale in the event of an impact with Earth.
But orbit analyses conducted by CNEOS indicates that no known Potentially Hazardous object has any noteworthy chance of colliding with Earth in the next couple of centuries or so. The CNEOS database of all known NEOs contains data for all Earth close approaches up until the year 2200.
According to NASA, space rocks that measure less than 25 meters (around 82 feet) across—like 2024 VM1—will most likely burn up if they enter the Earth's atmosphere, causing little to no damage on the ground.
2024 VM1 was only recently observed for the first time this year but astronomers were able to quickly refine its orbit and determine that there was no chance it would collide with our planet this time around.
Sometimes, space rocks are identified for the first time shortly before they make a close approach to our planet. But astronomer Gianluca Masi with the Virtual Telescope Project previously told Newsweek it was not necessarily concerning that small asteroids like these were detected only days before their close approach dates.
"The increase we see in the detection rate of small asteroids is mainly due to our improving capabilities to spot small objects," he said. "Hopefully, this rate will increase more and more. It is a good thing, it says we are better and better monitoring the sky and keeping safe our planet."
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about archaeology? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
