An asteroid the size of a bus will pass by Earth today – at a distance of just 220,000 kilometers from our planet, NASA warns

An asteroid the size of a bus is set to pass by Earth today – but experts have reassured there is no reason to worry.

The asteroid, named 2024 DW, is expected to come as close as 230,000 kilometers to our planet today – even closer than the moon.

The diameter is estimated at about 42 feet, which is longer than a London bus and about half the size of a blue whale.

As 2024 DW flies past Earth, it will travel at a speed of just over 40,000 miles per hour – about 50 times the speed of sound.

But despite its proximity to Earth, it should pose no threat to our planet.

As the name suggests, asteroid 2024 DW was discovered this year by astronomers working on the Mount Lemmon Survey, a project in Tucson, Arizona.

NASA lists it as one of the upcoming close approaches on its online tracker, which collects incoming objects that come closer and closer to Earth.

But according to Dr Minjae Kim, a space expert at the University of Warwick’s astronomy department, it does not pose a ‘real danger’ like most asteroids that come near us.

“While the likelihood of a direct land impact is lower due to Earth’s vast oceans, the potential impact of an asteroid remains a serious concern,” he added.

Because the moon is in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (an orbit that is not perfectly circular), its distance from us gradually changes.

According to TheSkyLive, the moon is currently 401,964 km away from Earth.

That means asteroid 2024 DW will be just over half the distance between Earth and the moon today.

Depicted is the orbit of asteroid 2024 DW (white) in relation to that of Earth (light blue) and Mars (red)

Due to its relative proximity to Earth, the asteroid is classified as a Near Earth Object (NEO) and is being tracked by the space agency.

A NEO is defined as such if it is within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) (120.8 million miles) of the Sun and therefore within 0.3 AU (27.8 million miles) of Earth’s orbit.

“NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been pushed into orbits by the gravity of nearby planets that allow them to enter Earth’s environment,” NASA said.

‘Comets, which consist mainly of water ice with embedded dust grains, originally formed in the cold outer planetary system, while most rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

‘Scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant of the solar system’s formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.’

An asteroid is also defined as “potentially hazardous” if it is within 0.05 astronomical units (4.65 million miles) of Earth and has a diameter greater than 140 meters (459 feet).

Fortunately, 2024 DW is too small to meet the second specification, so it is not considered potentially dangerous, but its proximity is still a concern.

According to NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, on average every 5,000 years, Earth is hit by a rock the size of a football field, and every million years by a civilization-ending asteroid.

“If there is a significant asteroid threat, the public would obviously be well informed by Planetary Defense at NASA,” Dr. Kim said.

“In the event that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, NASA would issue a notification of a close encounter or potential impact.”

According to a 2017 study, only asteroids with a diameter of at least 18 meters (nearly 60 feet) are potentially deadly as they make their way to Earth.

The largest known asteroid in the entire solar system, Ceres, has a diameter of 930 kilometers (over 3 million feet) – big enough for humans to live on.

Fortunately, the chance of Ceres hitting Earth is small because its orbit is further away, between Mars and Jupiter, and does not intersect with Earth’s orbit.

Unfortunately, there are certain types of space rock that would be difficult or even impossible to deflect with such a man-made object, a recent study suggests.

‘Debris pile’ asteroids – like Itokawa some 2.0 million kilometers away – consist of loose boulders and rocks that have clumped together under the influence of gravity, so that much of it is empty space.

Such an asteroid would act as a “space cushion” in that it would absorb all impact energy and continue its trajectory, the study authors claimed.