Asteroid: NASA: Massive asteroid will pass Earth next month

The newly discovered asteroid, 1998 OR2, was found alongside another potentially dangerous asteroid, called 1998 OH, NASA said in a release.

The more imminent asteroid is set to be closest to Earth on April 29 and will be traveling at approximately 19,461 mph, according to NASA’s tracking data.

The asteroids were found by NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) system, which is designed to track potentially dangerous asteroids and comets before they reach Earth.

“This shows that our efforts to find near-Earth objects are paying off.”Follow-up observations made by Dr. David L. Rabinowitz of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed that neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth, according to NASA.

“Our goal is to discover and track all the potentially dangerous asteroids and comets long before they are likely to approach Earth,” said NEAT Principal Investigator Eleanor Helin.