NASA images capture asteroid plummeting toward Earth at 40,000mph

NASA recently released photos of two asteroids plummeting toward Earth, just narrowly avoiding smashing into the planet.

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California took photos of asteroids 2011 UL21 and 2024 MK that soared next to Earth. The photos were taken by NASA’s Deep Space Network's Goldstone planetary radar, according to a news release .

On July 8, a different asteroid, 2024 MT-1, came hurtling past our planet from about 936,000 miles away.

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The first, 2011 UL21, passed Earth at a distance of 4.1 million miles, which is about 17 times the distance between the Moon and Earth. It was first discovered in 2011, but this is the first time it’s come close enough to Earth to be photographed.

The asteroid is nearly a mile wide, and it has a smaller asteroid, or moonlet, in its orbit from a distance of about 1.9 miles. 2011 UL21 is classified as potentially hazardous, but likely won’t be a threat to Earth anytime soon.

The asteroid was about 500 feet wide in an elongated, angular shape. The release said asteroids of that size coming so close to Earth are rare, as they only happen every couple of decades.

Lance Benner, principal scientist at JPL, said: “This was an extraordinary opportunity to investigate the physical properties and obtain detailed images of a near-Earth asteroid.”

2024 MK was only first discovered on June 16, about two weeks before its Earth flyby. It’s about the size of the Washington Monument.

It’s also classified as potentially hazardous, but NASA calculations reveal it won’t pose a threat to Earth in the foreseeable future.