A large, harmless asteroid will zip past Earth this weekend
FILE – People look up to the sky from an observatory near the village of Avren, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — A large asteroid will zip past Earth this weekend, but don’t worry: It poses no danger.
The space rock — 1997 NC1 — makes its closest approach Saturday morning, coming within 1.6 million miles (2.6 million kilometers), according to the European Space Agency.
Discovered nearly three decades ago by an asteroid-tracking system in Hawaii, the asteroid is between 2,461 feet (0.75 kilometer) to 5,413 feet (1.65 kilometers) wide — roughly the size of two to four Empire State Buildings.
Skygazers with binoculars and small telescopes may be able to spot the asteroid as a small point of light passing harmlessly through the sky. It won’t greet Earth from such a distance again until 2133, according to NASA.
The last time an asteroid similar in size passed safely by Earth from an even closer distance was in 2022, when a space rock called 1994 PC1 made its approach.
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NASA, ESA and other space agencies track the paths of asteroids and other space junk so they can keep Earth safe from any possible collisions. Last year, astronomers tracked a smaller asteroid resembling a spinning hockey puck and said there’s no chance of it hitting Earth or the moon.
