NASA warns AGAIN! Hazardous asteroid heading for Earth today

Alert! This hazardous asteroid is heading for our planet today. Here’s what NASA said about this asteroid.

NASA has warned of a hazardous asteroid which is heading for our planet today. (Pixabay)

Amidst high solar activity these past few weeks, another asteroid is headed for us. NASA has issued a warning for the asteroid that is expected to pass by Earth closely today, September 22. We are in the third week of September and there have already been more than 15 asteroid flybys already. August witnessed more than 40 asteroids flying closely past Earth and the month of September seems to achieve those figures, if not exceed them.

Asteroid 2022 ST1 to just miss Earth tomorrow

NASA has warned that an asteroid named Asteroid 2022 ST1 is heading for Earth and is expected to pass by the planet closely today, September 22. Asteroid 2022 ST1 is already on its way towards us travelling at a staggering speed of 48,708 kilometers per hour.

The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth today at a distance of just 1.5 million kilometers or 0.010668 astronomical units. An astronomical unit (AU, or au) is basically a unit of length equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun, that is, 149,597,870.7 kilometers. Asteroid 2022 ST1 is part of the Apollo group of asteroids. According to the-sky.org, this asteroid takes almost 976 days to complete one orbit of the Sun, during which its farthest distance from the Sun is 454 million kilometers and nearest distance is 122 million kilometers.

NASA's DART Mission set to collide with target asteroid

The DART spacecraft recently got its first look at Didymos, the double-asteroid system that includes its target, Dimorphos. According to the information provided by NASA, on September 26, DART will intentionally crash into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos. While the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, this is the world's first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense."

Using observations taken every five hours, the DART team will execute three trajectory correction maneuvers over the next three weeks, each of which will further reduce the margin of error for the spacecraft's required trajectory to impact.