NASA reveals that asteroid as big as Burj Khalifa to zoom past Earth at 52,500mph on November 1

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Despite the asteroid, named 2022 RM4, not touching the Earth, a warning has been issued. It has been described as an NEO - a near Earth object. This is because while 1.4 million miles may seem like a lot of distance to put between the earth and the asteroid, it is not nearly enough when put into context in space terms.

“NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood,” NASA, according to The Daily Mail. “Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago,” they added. 

Toby Dunn, an astrological researcher at the Francisco State University, said, “2022 RM4 will pass less than six lunar distances on Tuesday. This is very close for an asteroid this size.” Dunn has made sound comparisons about the size of the asteroids with regards to other asteroids that may have collided with the Earth.

He said that the 2022 RM4 was larger than that which created the Meteor Crater in Arizona, about 50,000 years ago and was also a huge one in comparison to the 2015 FF, which was said to be as big as a blue whale. The asteroid, 2015 FF, passed by the Earth in August.