A Snowman-Shaped Asteroid Tumbles Past Earth at Incredible Speed

A very interesting asteroid, 2024 ON, flew by Earth on September 17, 2024. Scientists got to observe a rare view of a space rock in the shape of a snowman. While the object has been classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid because it has been close to our Earth, it was never a direct threat and passed safely at 620,000 miles.

NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar in California took radar images that revealed the peculiar structure of the asteroid. The 1,150-foot-long (350 meters) asteroid has two lobes: one is about 50% larger than the other. Scientists find this peanut-shaped asteroid resembling a snowman to be an excellent example of a “contact binary”: two smaller asteroids merge under the influence of gravitational forces.

A High-Speed Journey

Asteroid 2024 ON traveled at a mind-boggling speed of 19,842 mph or 31,933 kph past Earth. It is approximately 26 times faster than the sound. But once again, now we have to size of the asteroid as a problem and its speed was not-a problem- the asteroid at no point threatened Earth: it covered the distance from Earth to the moon over 2.5 times.

Although listed as a potential threat, measurements that were recently conducted allowed scientists to predict the path of the asteroid very well into the future. Therefore, it’s unlikely that 2024 ON poses any danger to Earth for hundreds of years and didn’t at all, despite being listed as a potential threat.

Contact Binary Asteroids: Distribution

Asteroids such as 2024 ON are contact binaries, type of asteroid accounting for a percent or 14% of the near-Earth asteroids over 200 meters in size. One of the most famous contact binaries is Selam, a small moonlet orbiting a much larger asteroid named Dinkinesh. Such asteroids provide highly useful information for the process of formation and the development of other celestial bodies within our solar system.

As space agencies continue to observe near-Earth objects, radar and other tracking technologies help make more accurate predictions and understand the behavior of such objects. Indeed, more than 60 asteroids passed between Earth and the moon in 2024 owing to enhanced observational efforts using AI-powered algorithms.

While the recent visit of asteroid 2024 ON created much interest because it looked like a snowman, it reminded us that there is much more in store for asteroid tracking. Luckier for us, though, is that none are posed to go any closer for a long while, and we were able to appreciate the cosmic beauty and scientific insights it offered without worrying about Earth’s safety.