The asteroid will zoom past Earth on the fall equinox

The fall equinox on September 22 will bring the Earth about 12 hours of daylight, 12 hours of the night and a renegade space rock measuring about three times the size of the Statue of Liberty.

According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this asteroid is named 2021 NY1 and will sail harmlessly past our planet. It is still considered a Near-Earth Object because it will pass within about 193 million kilometres of the sun.

The asteroid 2021 NY1 will make a relatively close approach of about 1,560,000 km away from Earth or under four times the distance between Earth and the moon.  The asteroid does not pose any threat to life on Earth.NASA monitors all NEOs on the off chance that their orbits might change in the future, bringing them closer to a collision with our planet. Studying the characteristics of NEOs can also reveal new information about the early days of the solar system, as most asteroid are rocky fragments originating from that time.

asteroid 2021 NY1 is a decent-sized rock, measuring between about 130 to 300 meters or between three and six Statues of Liberty tall. The freewheeling rock is cruising through space at about 33,800 km/h or roughly 27 times the speed of sound. That honour goes to the 2020 QG, which zipped just 1,830 miles (2,950 km) above the Indian Ocean on Aug. 16, 2020