First, COVID-19 and Now An Asteroid is Coming

2020 has already been a very interesting year, (not necessarily in a good way). COVID-19 moved us all inside, and now, an asteroid is about to pass close to the Earth.

The asteroid is known as 1998 OR2, because it was discovered in 1998 and will pass about 4 million miles from Earth this Wednesday, April 29th at 4:46 AM - CDT according to kens5.com.

It may not seem like it, but 4 million miles in space terms is extremely close. Any object that gets as close as 19.5 lunar distances of Earth is considered a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid by the Center for Near Earth Objects. At its closest approach, the roughly 1.5 mile wide Asteroid will still be about 16 times farther from us than the Moon is from the Earth.

Scientists stress that there's zero chance that the space rock will hit Earth on this pass, but it will be close enough to view with a telescope. You can also watch a live stream of it passing by at virtualtelescope.eu.