A massive asteroid flyby will take place later on Friday, officials with NASA have said.
The asteroid 1998 QE2, which is nearly two miles wide, will not pose a threat to the earth, but astronomers and government agencies are looking to study the space rock, as it will make its closest pass by the Earth in two centuries.
“This is a big asteroid that’s going to be one of the best radar imaging targets of the year,” Lance Benner of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. “As my old friend, radar astronomer Steve Ostro used to say, spaceship Earth is making a flyby of the asteroid, so we’re going to exploit the capabilities of the radars to understand as much as possible.”
Some time on Friday, the asteroid will get 3.6 million miles from the Earth .
“At that range, both the Goldstone and Arecibo radars should be able to make detailed images of 1998 QE2,” added Benner. “The radar maps should rival images of other asteroids obtained by spacecraft during flyby missions.”
The Associated Press reported that a smaller moon is orbiting around the asteroid, which is considered unusual but not entirely unheard of.
Scientists believe that the asteroid, which is 1.7 miles across, was around the same size as the asteroid that hit the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, reported AP.
Astronomers discovered the smaller moon object on Wednesday night.
