Asteroid the size of the Golden Gate Bridge will whiz past Earth in March - Space.com

An asteroid as wide as the Golden Gate Bridge is long will hurtle past Earth next month.

The space rock, officially called 231937 (2001 FO32), is about 0.5 to 1 mile (0.8 to 1.7 kilometers) in diameter and will come within 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) of Earth at 11:03 a.m.

An asteroid is designated as "potentially hazardous" when its orbit intersects with Earth's at a distance of no more than about 4.65 million miles (7.5 million km) and it is bigger than about 500 feet (140 meters) in diameter, according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). .

Small asteroids pass between Earth and the moon several times a month, and their fragments enter and break up in Earth's atmosphere almost daily, according to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO)!

Air Force and NASA — detected the asteroid on March 23, 2001, according to EarthSky.

Scientists used these observations to calculate the asteroid's orbit and determine how close the space rock will come to Earth when it whizzes by at almost 77,000 mph (124,000 km/h). .

The current biggest known threat is an asteroid called (410777) 2009 FD, which has a 1 in 714 (less than 0.2%) chance of hitting Earth in 2185, according to NASA's PDCO. !

If you have a telescope with an aperture of at least 8 inches (20 centimeters), you might be able to spot the fast-moving space rock, according to EarthSky.