(NYP) – A “potentially hazardous” asteroid the size of the Empire State Building will come within striking distance of the Earth on Aug. 10 — but is expected to zoom by without incident, according to NASA. The space rock — designated as a near-Earth object, because its orbit takes it within 30 million miles of our planet — is expected to come within about 4.55 million miles of us as it whizzes by at 10,400 mph.
Anything that gets closer than 0.05 “astronomical units” — roughly 4.65 million miles — is considered “potentially hazardous.” The asteroid, dubbed 2006 QQ23, is 1,870 feet in diameter — some 36 stories larger than the 1,454-foot-tall Empire State Building. It hasn’t gotten this close to our terrestrial home since 2001, when it came within 3.13 million miles, according to data from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. FULL REPORT
