Today, you may see a massive, mile-wide asteroid pass safely by Earth.

 Today, a massive asteroid with a diameter of more than a mile will pass safely past Earth, and you can watch it live via a free internet broadcast.

Asteroid 7335 (1989 JA) is four times the size of the Empire State Building and will pass Earth at a distance of nearly ten times the distance between the Earth and the moon. Although this will be the greatest asteroid flyby of 2022, the space rock will remain at a safe distance from our planet.

The flyby will be streamed at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) on May 27 by the Virtual Telescope Project; you can watch it in the window above or directly through the project's website 

Asteroid 7335 (1989 JA) has a diameter of around 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometres) and is 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometres) from Earth at its closest approach. The asteroid should be visible with a moderate-sized amateur telescope, especially from the southern hemisphere, according to Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.

Technically, asteroid 7335 (1989 JA) is categorised as "possibly hazardous," although that designation is based on the object's relative size (more than 492 feet or 150 metres) and the distance at which it approaches Earth, among other variables.

The object, according to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, poses no threat. To learn more about asteroids, keep track of other notable impending flybys(opens in new tab) and the agency's Small-Body Database

The ESA does keep a list of asteroids(opens in new tab) that have a small and statistically implausible chance of colliding, but none of them are a major concern right now. This file is also kept up to date by the agency. Asteroid Apophis, for example, was removed from the list in 2021 after new observations revealed that it poses little hazard in the next century.

Missions are also being carried out by agencies all across the world to learn more about the composition and history of asteroids.

The DART mission, which aims to redirect an asteroid moonlet, and OSIRIS-REX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer), which will bring a sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth in 2023, are two examples.

These missions are carried out to evaluate the composition of asteroids in case they collide with the Earth, and space agencies are becoming more adept at tracking asteroids. That may explain why there appear to be so many space objects passing us by these days.