Scientists have identified an asteroid known as 2024 XN1 that will pass close to the Earth by December 24. 200 meters in size, this space rock will come to a distance of 4,480,000 miles—more than 16 new moons away from our planet. Traveling at a speed of 14,743 miles per hour (6.59 km per second), its closest approach is expected at 2:57 am. Even though it has been dubbed a ‘close call’ by space agencies, geomantic experts agree Earth is not endangered by this interaction.
Meteors such as the 2024 XN1 are considered to be part of the early solar system and produce information about the environment that formed planets including the Earth. Today numerous objects that are space debris are followed by NASA with advanced radar technology and optical telescopes for tracking and predicting their paths.
This flyby largely exposes more about the planetary defense. Prior massive shocks like the one that rendered dinosaurs extinct support this call for a constant check. CN EOS of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory assigns, identify, and analyze the near-Earth asteroid orbits and the imminently threatening near-Earth objects along with their close approach predictions.
Those objects, which less than 460 feet (140 meters) in size approaching less than 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) to the Earth, are called potentially hazardous asteroids. The agency monitors such objects to protect the planet, according to CNEOS.
The majority of identified near-Earth objects are no threat because their orbits place the objects significantly away from our planet. Nevertheless, a small fraction with orbits that approach the Earth’s orbit, which lies as far as 190.89 million miles (307.48 million kilometers) from the Sun, are closely watched. They vary in size from approximately meter sized, or close to few asteroids to kilometer sized or nearly forty kilometers in size.
