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A small asteroid the size of a bus will fly safely by Earth today
By Tariq Malik 4 hours ago
Asteroid 2020 JA will pass at a range halfway to the moon.
A newly discovered asteroid about the size of a bus will zip safely by Earth today (May 3), passing at a distance just over halfway to the moon.
The asteroid 2020 JA will fly by Earth at a range of about 148,000 miles (238,000 kilometers) when it passes today. That's about 0.62 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. (The moon is about 239,000 miles, or 385,000 km, on average.)
Asteroid 2020 JA is between 31 and 72 feet wide (9.6 to 22 meters), according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies. NASA's Asteroid Watch widget listed the asteroid's diameter as about 40 feet (12 m) and compared its size to a city bus.
This NASA graphic shows the path of asteroid 2020 JA, a newfound bus-sized space rock that will fly safely by Earth at a distance of 148,000 miles on May 3, 2020. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy captured an image of 2020 JA with a telescope. In the image, the asteroid appears as a tiny point of light in a star field.
More:
https://www.space.com/small-asteroid-2020-ja-earth-flyby-may-2020.html
