“Space stones” will fly past the planet on July 29-30.
Two large asteroids, the size of which can be compared with high-rise building, will fly by the Earth at the end of this week. According to NASA data, the approach will take place on July 29 and 30.
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Diameter of the first asteroid that received the designation 2016 CZ31, is 122 meters, it will fly at a distance of 2.8 million kilometers from Earth. The second “space rock” will be much larger, 283 meters in diameter, but it will also fly much further – at a distance of 6.9 million kilometers from our planet.
As Newsweek notes, such a distance may seem impossibly large, but on the scale of the universe it's very close. At the same time, there is no danger that the asteroids will fall to Earth during the approach.
The speed of movement of 2016 CZ31 at the time of its flyby will be 55,500 kilometers per hour. This is about 17 times faster than a bullet fired from a gun.
At the moment, scientists know about 29,000 near-Earth objects. Some of them, based on their size and distance to the planet, belong to the category of potentially dangerous. But despite the name, there is no chance that any of these objects will collide with Earth in the next few centuries.
In November, NASA launched the DART spacecraft, which is supposed to crash into the satellite of the asteroid Dimorpha and change the trajectory of its movement. However, simulations conducted by scientists have shown that this collision may not happen exactly as expected.
