The month of August seems to attract several asteroids towards Earth! Other than the Perseid meteor shower that is expected to peak late Friday night into early Saturday morning (August 12 to 13, 2022), a dangerous 110 feet wide asteroid is heading towards Earth and is said to zoom past the planet. It can be known that NASA has confirmed that a 110-feet wide city-killer asteroid will be making a close approach to the Earth on August 13. Like any approaching asteroid, there is always a risk that it can get pulled in by our planet’s gravitational force and crash into the surface causing massive destruction and damage. But how high is the risk with this particular space rock? Find it out here.

NASA has been collecting data on this asteroid ever since it was first discovered in July 2022. This information can be found on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website as well as Small-Body database and Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) websites, all functioning under NASA. According to the information, the asteroid is named 2022 OT1 and it will come as close as 4.7 million kilometers to the Earth. Traveling at a speed of 20,808 kilometers per hour, this asteroid can close this seemingly huge distance in mere days if a last moment deviation took place for some reason.

At this moment, the prediction models state that the asteroid will not strike the Earth and instead will make a safe passage across our planet.

Asteroid 2022 OT1 heading towards the Earth

Even as the asteroid was spotted just the previous month by NASA, we have been able to collect some data about it. For instance, we know that this asteroid is moving in an irregularly elliptical orbit where the perihelion (the point in orbit closest to the Sun) is between Venus and Earth and its aphelion (the point in orbit farthest from the Sun) is between Earth and Mars.

If the Earth escapes the asteroid strike this time around, we will see this space rock annually till 2025 when it takes a break for 11 years before coming close to us again. However, it will come this concerningly close till 2039.