School bus-sized asteroid to come nearly as close to Earth as the moon

Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on May 3, 2023

(NEW YORK) — An asteroid the size of a school bus will be passing by Earth at a distance close to that of the moon on Wednesday, according to NASA.

The asteroid, which has an orbit larger than Earth’s, will come as close to the planet as 270,000 miles. The moon is 238,900 miles from Earth.

The asteroid — called 2023 HV5 — is 41 feet in size, according to NASA’s lab.

The asteroid is moving at about 8.9 kilometers per second, or 5.53 miles per second, according to the agency’s calculations.

HV5 isn’t the only asteroid to pass Earth relatively nearby this week.

The next asteroid approaching Earth, which is the size of a house, could get as close as 397,000 miles away. It will be approaching Earth on Thursday.

NASA has discovered 31,831 near-Earth asteroids of all sizes.

Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets that orbit the sun like the planets.

As of May 2, NASA had discovered 851 asteroids that were larger than 1 kilometer, or 0.62 miles. An estimated 50 asteroids are left to be found, according to NASA.

In the last 30 days, 10 asteroids have passed closer to Earth than the moon, according to NASA. In the last 365 days, 103 asteroids passed closer to Earth than the moon.