Science is Fun Fridays!
Asteroid XQ60 will be flying by Earth on December 21.
It is traveling at about 33,554 miles per hour and is larger than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Aten asteroids are those whose orbits bring them into Earth's proximity, and they are the ones most likely to hit us. This one, however, is expected to pass at a safe distance.
Four days later, asteroid 501647 will fly by at 22,300 miles per hour. It is nearly double the size of XQ60. Luckily we have NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program to track and monitor these things!
Also on the 21st, a reminder to catch "The Great Conjunction" / The Christmas Star.
A total solar eclipse was seen in Chile and Argentina earlier this week. What viewers didn't know was that a comet was flying past the Sun as it was happening. It was discovered December 13 by an amateur astronomer as part of a citizen science project called the Sungrazer Project.
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