NASA watches football field-sized asteroid set to pass Earth on Friday

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory placed the “potentially hazardous” asteroid, 2008 OS7, on its watch list, expecting the mass to make a close pass of Earth on Friday. At its closest point, it will be at a distance more than seven times further than the moon, and its velocity will clock in at about 11 miles per second. The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 is hosting an online viewing of the asteroid’s travel. Although 2008 OS7 regularly passes Earth about once every two-and-a-half years, Friday’s encounter is expected to be its closest pass in over a century. It comes as NASA celebrates the tenth anniversary of its International Asteroid Warning Network.

At that distance, why is it considered “potentially dangerous”? NASA’s Asteroid Watch dashboard automatically considers any object larger than about 492 feet and passing within 4.6 million miles of Earth, as “potentially dangerous.” 2008 OS7 is almost 890 feet and is expected to pass within about 1.7 million miles of Earth. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office insists that the asteroid is “one of thousands of similar near-Earth objects and there is nothing special or concerning about it.” NASA also confirmed that “there are no known asteroid threats to Earth for at least 100 years.”