220-foot asteroid to buzz Earth today! NASA reveals speed, size and more

NASA has now revealed that an aircraft-sized asteroid is expected to approach Earth today and while it isn’t expected to impact the surface, it could pass by very closely. Know details of its close approach.

Asteroid 2023 PM1 belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids. (Pixabay)

The Alvarez hypothesis, proposed by the father and son duo Luis and Walter Alvarez in 1980, states that an asteroid struck Earth more than 65 million years ago and kicked off the extinction of dinosaurs. Although its impact crater has been presumed to be in Mexico, new light has now been shed on how it reached Earth. According to the English physicist Brian Cox, the asteroid, which formed a 140-kilometer impact crater, was thrown off its course by Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System.

“It is highly likely or possible that it was deflected into a collision course with Earth by Jupiter,” Cox said in a YouTube shorts video shared by @tech_topia, highlighting that Jupiter is the creator and destroyer of worlds.

NASA has now revealed that an asteroid is expected to miss Earth today and while it isn't expected to impact the surface, it could pass by very closely. Know details of its close approach.

Asteroid 2023 PM1

NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), which is responsible for monitoring the skies against the threat of rogue asteroids, has issued a warning against the close approach of an asteroid designated as Asteroid 2023 PM1. The space rock will make its closest approach to Earth today, August 21, and will miss the planet by a distance of 3.1 million kilometers. It has been tracked in its orbit, travelling at a speed of almost 66858 kilometers per hour.

While this asteroid is not a planet killer or as big as the dinosaur-killing asteroid, it is still huge.NASA estimates it to be around 220 feet wide, making it almost as big as an aircraft!

Other details

It belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-crossing space rocks with semi-major axes larger than Earth's. These asteroids are named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.

Shockingly, this will be Asteroid 2023 PM1's first-ever close approach to Earth in history. As per the details provided by NASA's Small-Body Database Lookup, while it will not make an extremely close approach to the planet in the near future, this asteroid will visit pass by the planet again on February 4, 2026, at a distance of 19 million kilometers.