an asteroid will pass close to Earth this Sunday. According to scientists, there is no risk of collision. It will be the biggest to come close to Earth in the entire year of 2021.
the heavenly body was baptized 2001 FO32 and will go to about two million kilometers away from Earth. It is less than a kilometer in diameter and travels at 124,000 km/h, “faster than most asteroids” circling near Earth, according to NASA. Its trajectory is “sufficiently known and regular”, with which, Experts from the Paris-PSL Observatory have ruled out any danger.
The rocky body will reach its closest point to our planet this Sunday at 16:02 GMT. Then there will be 2,016,158 km from Earth, that is, about five times the distance between Earth and Moon.
“There is no risk of collision with our planet,” explained the US space agency. Its trajectory is “sufficiently known and regular” to ward off any danger, guarantee the experts at the Paris-PSL Observatory.
Anyway, the asteroid is classified as “potentially dangerous”, like all those whose orbit is less than 19.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon and whose diameter is greater than 140 meters.
Astronomers around the world “relentlessly pursue” this category to develop the most exhaustive inventory possible, emphasizes the Observatory, noting that the first asteroid (and the largest), Ceres, was discovered in 1801.
Asteroid 2001 FO32
O asteroid “2001 FO32” was discovered in march 2001 and its trajectory has been followed since then. It belongs to the “Apollo” family of geocrossed asteroids, which get around the sun in at least a year and they can cross Earth’s orbit.
“Currently, we know little about this object, so this close encounter gives us an incredible opportunity to learn a lot” about it, said Lance Benner, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on which the Center for Object Studies depends. Proximals. of the Earth (CNEOS).
According to CNEOS, “Amaterus astronomers in the southern hemisphere and low northern latitudes should be able to see it.”
“We should see a white dot moving like a satellite”, added the astronomer. The trajectory has nothing to do with that of shooting stars, tiny asteroids that form a luminous line that divides the sky in a fraction of a second.
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