NASA confirms asteroid nearly 2,500 feet wide will approach Earth very soon

Astronomers have recently discovered a very large asteroid that has been classified as "potentially hazardous", and it will be making an approach with Earth quite soon.

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NASA has added the asteroid called 2022 RM4 to its Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) database, where it states its estimated diameter, speed, and the closest it will come to Earth during its closest approach. According to the database, 2022 RM4 is anywhere between 1,083 feet to 2,428 feet in diameter, which puts it just under the height of the tallest building in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

The CNEOS database states the very large asteroid will pass Earth at extremely fast speeds, traveling at an estimated 52,500 mph, which is about 68 times the speed of sound. Notably, 2022 RM4 poses no risk to Earth at all as astronomers estimate that it will pass Earth at a safe distance of 1.43 million miles, or about six times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon. So, why is 2022 RM4 classified as "potentially hazardous"?

It's quite simple, 1.43 million miles isn't a very far distance at all when considering the scale of the cosmos, or even the solar system. NASA officially classifies any object that comes within 120 million miles of Earth's orbit as a "near-Earth object," and if that object is large and travels within 4.65 million miles of Earth, it's further classified as "potentially hazardous". While these distances may seem extreme when thinking about travel on Earth, in space, they aren't.

2022 RM4 isn't the only near-Earth object NASA is tracking, as its database exceeds more than 28,000 asteroids and counting. Adding to the total is NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which scans the sky every 24 hours for new objects. Despite the large number of asteroids that have been discovered already, 15,000 of them were only discovered in the last 10 years, leading researchers to believe that many more are still undiscovered, as 2022 RM4 was until just a few days ago.

• Read more: Here's how many near-Earth asteroids have been found so far

Luckily, NASA believes that all asteroids capable of causing an extinction-level event have already been discovered and that Earth is safe for at least the next 100 years. For more on the possible dangers of asteroids, check out the below link.

• Read more: NASA drops results from world's first test at deflecting an asteroid