The asteroid will approach the planet at a distance of about 120 thousand kilometers, which is about 3.2 times less than the distance between the Earth and the Moon. A celestial body moves in space at a speed of about 8.16 meters per second, reports lenta.ru.
Asteroids, the orbit of which intersects with the earth, are called Apollo in honor of Apollo, one of the most important ancient Greek gods, symbolizing the Sun, - the agency RIA Novosti notes. They continue to be discovered until now, in particular, ES4 became known only in 2011. Another potentially dangerous asteroid 2009 PQ1 flew past Earth just recently, on August 5. Its size is comparable to that of a football field.
It is also known that another potentially dangerous asteroid 2018 VP1 will approach Earth at a minimum distance on November 2, on the eve of the presidential elections in USA. It will fly 384 thousand kilometers from Earth, but the probability that the asteroid will enter the planet's atmosphere is one in 240, or 0.41%, which is quite a lot by cosmic standards.