Close Encounter: Bus-Sized Asteroid Narrowly Misses Communications Satellites

Hundreds of space rocks whiz past Earth every day, and most of them go unnoticed by telescopes. Just recently, an asteroid as big as a small school bus made a very close but safe flyby of Earth. However, it flew by alarmingly near the orbit of communications satellites.

Scientists discovered the near-Earth object (NEO) named 2016 RB1 just two days before its flyby, Space.com said. The space rock was estimated to be between 13 and 46 feet (4 to 14 meters) wide and belonged to the Atens group of NEOs that orbit inside the inner solar system.

Asteroid 2016 RB1 had a relative speed of 18,000 mph (8.13 km/s) during its closest approach at 17:28 UTC on September 7, 2016. It passed within 23,900 miles (38,463 km) above Earth's surface, or just one-tenth the average distance between Earth and the Moon. Its flyby was quite close to the orbit of geosynchronous satellites at about 22,300 miles (35,900 km). There had been no risk 2016 RB1 would have impacted any satellites during the encounter, EarthSky reported, citing scientists who plotted the asteroid's track.

But what would happen if an asteroid as big as 2016 RB1 hit the planet? According to Space.com, 2016 RB1 is not big enough to cause damage as extensive as the meteor that exploded mid-air over Russia's Chelyabinsk region in 2013. An asteroid that could cause a catastrophe as massive as the extinction of the dinosaurs should be at least 30 times the size of 2016 RB1, as per experts.

The close flyby happened just a day before NASA launched its first-ever asteroid sampling spacecraft, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, REgolith Explorer or OSIRIS-Rex at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The $800-million mission will get a sample from the 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) asteroid Bennu in August 2018, before returning to Earth in September 2023. OSIRIS-REx will also conduct research on forces affecting deep-space asteroids.