Two asteroids will pass Earth back-to-back this week, just in time to celebrate Asteroid Day 2024. Here's what we know.
Asteroid Day 2024 is coming up, commemorating the explosion of the largest observed asteroid as it struck the Earth above Tunguska in Siberia in 1908. The strike was a small rotation of the Earth away from devastating one of Europe’s more heavily popular regions, and the UN-endorsed day is a good reminder of just how powerful and deadly these iconic cosmic objects can be.
It was first observed on June 16, and will fly by our planet on June 29, during the height of Earth’s Asteroid Day activities, the European Space Agency reports. 2024 MK is large for a near-Earth object and is estimated to pass within 290,000 kilometers of the surface of our planet. That’s around 75 percent of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Of course, there’s no risk of the asteroid impacting Earth at this time.
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