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NASA's Center for Near-Earth Objects (CNEOS) has detected a huge asteroid that is poised to pass dangerously close to Earth today. Asteroids that approach the planet at a very close distance pose a threat to the Earth because of the gravitational forces that affect them.
NASA has designated the asteroid approaching in 2019 MT2. According to the space agency, this object close to the Earth was observed for the first time on June 30. His next approach is currently the only recorded example of the asteroid flying over the Earth. Hopefully the CNEOS will be able to gather more data on the asteroid in order to chart its past and future trajectories.
According to CNEOS, the MT2 2019 has a maximum diameter of nearly 24 meters, which makes it significantly longer than the distance between baseball diamond bases. The agency noted that the asteroid is currently traveling at a speed of 11.04 kilometers per second, or about 25,000 miles at the time.
2019 MT2 is expected to overtake the Earth on July 8 at 1:15 pm ST. During its approach, its closest distance to Earth will be about 0.01118 astronomical units, or about 1.6 million kilometers from the center of the planet. This equates to about three times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
Although the Earth is safe from 2019 MT2 for now, this asteroid could hit the planet in the future because of its current trajectory. As previous studies have shown, some areas of space are called keyholes. These are areas that are affected by the gravitational pull of planets and other large neighboring cosmic bodies.
If an object passes through a keyhole, it will be affected by the gravitational forces in the area, forcing it to change course to create a possible direct collision path.
In the case of 2019 MT2, since it should pass near the Earth and the Moon, the gravitational attraction of these two cosmic bodies could significantly affect the orbit of the asteroid and push it in a different direction. This means that the asteroid is likely to end up on Earth directly on his next visit.
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