How to watch a stadium-sized asteroid zoom by Earth this week
Here's what astronomers know about Asteroid 2020 XR and how you can follow its journey as it zooms by Earth on Wednesday.
Watch: Video shows asteroid blasting across night sky above Philippines
FILE VIDEO: A video shared from the Philippines shows a bright asteroid burning through the atmosphere on Sept. 5, 2024.
Another gigantic asteroid will come within Earth's neighborhood on Wednesday, and Earthlings can watch it live online, knowing it's at a safe distance.
According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Asteroid Watch, an asteroid is considered potentially hazardous when it approaches Earth within 4.6 million miles of our planet and is larger than 500 feet.
Asteroid 2020 XR meets those criteria to be a potentially hazardous near-Earth object (NEO). The asteroid discovered in 2020 is set to make an astronomically close approach early on Wednesday more than 1.37 million miles from our planet, more than five times the average distance to the Moon.
Asteroid 2020 XR right before the flyby of Earth on Dec. 4 as seen on NASA JPL's small body database.
(NASA)
The asteroid is estimated to be between 980 and 2,300 feet long. If it’s somewhere in the middle of that estimate, it could be 1,200 feet, according to NASA’s JPL, which is about the size of an American football stadium.
Asteroid 2020 XR's orbit in white right before the flyby of Earth (blue line) on Dec. 4 as seen on NASA JPL's small body database.
(NASA)
The Virtual Telescope Project will host a livestream showing Asteroid 2020 XR during its close approach using telescopes in Italy beginning on Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET through the close approach around midnight on Dec. 4.
How we know Asteroid 2020 X won't hit Earth
According to the European Space Agency, when astronomers discovered the asteroid four years ago, they briefly thought it had a small chance of colliding with Earth in 2028.
"But by going back and finding the asteroid in older data, they were able to refine its trajectory and rule out any hazard," said Juan Luis Cano, with ESA’s Planetary Defense Office.
Asteroid 2020 XR close approach information from the European Space Agency.
(ESA)
These new calculations helped astronomers determine that Asteroid 2020 XR will not have a chance of impacting Earth for at least the next 100 years.
This won't be the last object approaching Earth's neighborhood. There are nearly 40,000 NEOs, and more than 2,300 were discovered in 2024 alone.