Asteroid 2020 XR will safely fly previous Earth on 4 December 2024 at 05:26 UTC (06:26 CET). It’s between 300 and 700 m throughout and can go slightly below six occasions the gap from Earth to the Moon.When astronomers came upon 2020 XR, precisely 4 years in the past, they in brief concept it had a small likelihood of colliding with Earth in 2028. However by means of having a look again at older observations of the sky, they noticed the asteroid in current knowledge and used this extra knowledge to extra appropriately calculate its orbit across the Solar and rule out any likelihood of Earth affect for a minimum of the following 100 years.In finding out extra about asteroids and ESA’s Planetary Defence actions.
