A small 60-foot asteroid will make a close but safe pass with Earth on Sunday.
The asteroid set to make its closest approach over New Zealand on Sept. 7 at 2:18 p.m. EDT, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) reported.
Asteroid 2014 RC was first spotted Aug. 31 by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz. It was also independently detected the following night by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, which sits on the simmit of Haleakal on Maui, Hawaii. Both observations were reported to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass.
At its closest approach 2014 RC will be about one-tenth the distance from the center of earth to the moon, which is equivalent to around 25,000 miles. The magnitude of the asteroid at that time will be about 11.5, meaning it will be just about invisible to the naked eye. Amateur astronomers with small telescopes will most likely be able to get a glimpse of the speedy asteroid.
The asteroid will pass below Earth and its geosynchronous ring of communications and weather satellites orbiting 22,000 miles above the surface. The asteroid is not believed to be a threat to Earth or its orbiting satellites, but its close approach will allow researchers to make observations and gain more insight into asteroids.
2014 RC's orbit will bring it back into Earth's neighborhood in the near future. The researchers plan to monitor asteroid's future motion to make sure there is no threat to Earth, but an impact is highly unlikely.
The fly-by will not be as close as Asteroid 2012DA 14 that missed the Earth by 17,200 miles in Feb. 2013; the same day a meteor crashed down in Cherlyabinsk Russia. These close encounters sparked the B612 Foundation to come up with plans to spot them, ABC News reported.
"We have the evidence these meteors have, and will continue to, hit our planet," he said. "What we need to do is find them first, and alter their orbit," former astronaut Ed Lu told ABC News.
