In its latest bulletin, NASA has warned of five Near-Earth Objects headed towards our planet this week, one of which is larger than the Statue of Liberty. Meanwhile, the agency is gearing up for its asteroid-sampling mission. <\/p>\n
Itll be a ferocious finale to September, as five space rocks measuring between 11 meters and 110 meters in diameter are due in just three days.<\/p>\n
Kicking things off on Monday will be the 11-meter, telephone pole-sized 2020 SY4, which will come within 724,000km of Earth at a blistering pace of 16.12km\/s (58,032kph, or 21 times as fast as a bullet (2,736kph).<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the behemoth 2020 PM7, which has a diameter of 110 meters, will shoot past at a safe distance of 2.8 million km. The giant rock is equivalent to 30 Volkswagen Beetles end-to-end, or about one-and-one-fifth times as tall as the Statue of Liberty.<\/p>\n
To close the show, on September 30, three space rocks will fly by our planetary backyard:<\/p>\n
2020 SV5, measuring 20m in diameter (a little over the size of a typical bowling alley), will shoot past at a distance of 1.2 million km; 2020 SQ, measuring 12m (thats eight Danny DeVitos) will swerve us at a distance of 2.1 million km; and, last but not least, 2020 SO2, measuring 37m (half the wingspan of a 747) will miss us by 6.9 million km.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, NASA boffins are busy preparing for the agencys first-ever asteroid-sampling mission, following in the footsteps of Japanese space agency JAXA's success on board the asteroid Ryugu.<\/p>\n
On October 20, NASAs OSIRIS-REx probe will touch down on the 1,640ft-wide (500 meter) space rock Bennu, having hovered in orbit for the past two years.<\/p>\n
The end zone is a small crater dubbed Nightingale, with the probe aiming to hit a 26ft-wide (8 meter) boulder-free target zone from which to take samples.<\/p>\n
This spot is just the width of a few parking places and is surrounded by large, boulder-like structures the size of small buildings, said Mike Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.<\/p>\n
Itll be a tricky maneuver, as theres an 18-minute delay in signals reaching the rock from Earth. The OSIRIS-REx probe will touch down for just a few seconds with its 11ft-long (3.4 meter) robotic arm, blasting the asteroids surface with nitrogen gas and collecting the debris with a sampling device the team have likened to a car's air filter.<\/p>\n
They are aiming to collect roughly 2oz (60g) of space dust from the rock. All going well, OSIRIS-REx will depart Bennu in March 2021 and is expected to land in the Utah desert some time on September 24, 2023.<\/p>\n
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Statue of Liberty-sized space rock among FIVE headed towards Earth warns NASA - RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In its latest bulletin, NASA has warned of five Near-Earth Objects headed towards our planet this week, one of which is larger than the Statue of Liberty. Meanwhile, the agency is gearing up for its asteroid-sampling mission. Continue reading