Bus-size Asteroid 2022 GN1 heading to Earth today: Where to watch it live? Will it cause any damage?

Washington, Apr 06: An asteroid approximately the the size of a bus will make a close approach to Earth on Thursday night, according to space object trackers.

Astronomers only spotted the near-Earth space rock 2022 GN1 a few days ahead of its head-turning flyby on Tuesday evening.

When was the asteroid discovered?

Asteroid 2022 GN1 was discovered by astronomers on Friday, April 1. The telescope that located the asteroid is the PansSTARRS telescope, which is based in Maui, Hawaii.

The asteroid is now less than 78,300 kilometers away from Earth. The object is soaring its way past the planet tonight.

It is expected to pass within 79,000 miles of the planet, and has been categorized as "potentially hazardous" by the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

Just a couple of weeks back, an asteroid named 2022 EB5 diverged from its path and collide with the Earth close to the Western coast of Greenland. NASA also has an Asteroid Watch dashboard that tracks asteroids and comets that will make relatively close approaches to Earth.

Though it poses no threat to our planet, Nasa has recorded the 16-meter-long mass in its "close approach" online database.

Asteroid 2022 GN1: Where to watch it live?

The Virtual Telescope Project, a set of robotic scopes in Italy, has announced that it will live stream Wednesday's flyby on its website.

What would happen if an asteroid hit Earth, continued

Experts think we'd experience fires, shock waves, heat radiation, a large crater, acid rain, and giant tsunamis if such an asteroid ended up hitting the water.

Asteroid

A relatively small, inactive body orbiting the Sun. Asteroids are typically composed of rocky, dusty, and metallic materials. Most orbit within the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but some follow paths that circulate into the inner solar system (including near-Earth asteroids), while others remain outside the orbit of Neptune.