A massive rock will pass by Earth next Sunday by four million miles. The asteroid is called 2019 JB1, and by comparison, both the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Statue of Liberty are minimized by the space rock. The size of the asteroid is 1.280-foot and will skim past Earth by 4 million miles. From its discovery at the beginning of the month, the JB1 has been classified as a NEO.
What Is a NEO?
NEO is short for near-Earth object and is a celestial body (asteroids or comets) pushed by the gravitational attraction to the nearby planet. They enter the orbit and the Earth’s vicinity. Asteroid 2019 JB1 is the exception of what we know about the NEOs route passing through the corner of space. Since the discovery, NASA has measured the trajectory, the speed, and the proximity to our planet. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was the one that has tracked the asteroid, and the one that has determined the rock route flying by Earth. The asteroid will pass by Earth and will vanish into the cosmos, and its returning isn’t seen in the future.
Moreover, its size is between 558 feet and 1.280 feet in diameter and is three times as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and four times larger than the Statue of Liberty. An essential and bright note: the asteroid doesn’t threaten Earth. It will pass by four million miles away from the Earth surface. The day in which JB1 will pass by our planet is late at night on May 19. JB1 speed is more than 58.000 mph, and the approximate hour of the closest approach is 11:21 P.M. ET.
Finally, the four million miles distance between the asteroid and Earth means less than 17 times the distance to the Moon in terrestrial standards.
