NASA has shared information about an asteroid called Asteroid 2023 TO15 that will have a near encounter with our planet today, November 6. Learn about its speed, how close it will come, its size, and other important details.
Here’s an interesting fact: You can now get a close look at an asteroid sample collected by NASA. The NASA OSIRIS-REx spacecraft completed a remarkable mission by landing on an asteroid, collecting rock and dust samples, and bringing them back to Earth. Initially, there were some challenges in opening the sample capsule, but NASA has successfully obtained the samples. In fact, a part of these historic samples is now on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC! So, if you’re in the area, you can go check out these samples for yourself.
In addition to this exciting news, NASA has shared information about another asteroid that is scheduled to have a close encounter with Earth today. Learn more about this upcoming event.
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Asteroid 2023 TO15
There’s an asteroid named Asteroid 2023 TO15 that’s headed our way, and it might come quite close to Earth today, on November 6. NASA has given us this information after closely tracking the asteroid’s path using a bunch of their satellites and telescopes both in space and on the ground. They used tools like NEOWISE and the Catalina Sky Survey. According to what NASA found, this asteroid, 2023 TO15, is expected to pass by Earth at a distance of about 5.8 million kilometers. That’s still a pretty good distance, but this speedy space rock will be zooming by at a rate of about 40,299 kilometers per hour!
NASA also tells us that this asteroid belongs to a group called the Apollo asteroids, which are a bunch of near-Earth rocks that cross Earth’s path while orbiting the Sun. They’re named after a massive asteroid called Apollo, which a German astronomer named Karl Reinmuth discovered back in the 1930s.
So, while it’s not going to hit us, it’s still quite an interesting cosmic event!
How large is this asteroid?
According to NASA, the approaching asteroid isn’t expected to collide with Earth, and it’s not large enough to be considered a Potentially Hazardous Object, which are celestial objects larger than about 490 meters that can come within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth. This asteroid is approximately 150 feet wide, about the size of an aircraft. Interestingly, this marks the first time Asteroid 2023 TO15 has come this close to Earth. According to NASA’s Small-Body Database Lookup, its next close pass will occur on February 8, 2027, at a distance of 61 million kilometers, traveling at a speed of 72,648 kilometers per hour.
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