“It’s not unusual for rocks to fly so close to Earth,” says van der Tak cheerfully. “In fact, we are constantly bombarded by space rocks. They are mostly small stones that break up in the atmosphere and end up on Earth almost unnoticed. They form near Mars and Jupiter, at times when new planets are forming. Planets are formed by the accumulation of small space rocks, also called asteroids. When new planets are formed, a lot of waste is released: there are millions of these space rocks floating around in the universe. Sometimes they get blown off course, and suddenly end up in an orbit close to Earth.
Crashes
“As astronomers, we find it interesting that large space rocks come so close to Earth. For example, we can land robots on them and investigate them. We’ve already managed to bring a piece of space rock back to Earth. It’s very rare for large asteroids, like 2024 MK last Saturday, to pass close to Earth. And if an asteroid is really heading toward Earth, there are ways to change the direction of the rock. For example, by allowing an unmanned spacecraft to collide with it.
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