An asteroid identified as 2021 NY1 is traveling through space at 21,000 MPH. This month, it will pass the Earth, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has warned it could be potentially hazardous. The asteroid has been classified as a “Near-Earth Object.”
NASA is now tracking the asteroid regarding its future trajectory. The asteroid is between 427 and 984 feet wide and is most likely to pass the Earth on Sept. 22. This will be the day when the asteroid will be at its closest point with the Earth as it will come within 930,487 miles of the planet. It will approach the Earth less than 1.3 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.
According to SpaceReference.org, the 2021 NY1 asteroid orbits the Sun every 1,400 days or 3.83 years. “Based on its brightness and the way it reflects light, 2021 NY1 is probably between 0.127 to 0.284 kilometers in diameter, making it a small to average asteroid, very roughly comparable in size to a school bus or smaller,” it said.
Analysts suggest that the next time the 2021 NY1 asteroid will be close enough to be considered as a Near-Earth Object will be on September 23, 2105.
Near-Earth Objects are comets and asteroids that the gravitational attraction of nearby planets pushed into orbits. This phenomenon allows the asteroid to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.
According to NASA’s official Near-Earth Objects’ website, cosmic objects are mainly composed of “water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.”
