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Saturday night, an asteroid 300 to 600 meters in diameter will fly near the Earth. To put its size in perspective, the Chicago Willis Tower is 412.7 meters high.
Experts claim that the asteroid, known as 2000 QW7 asteroid, will be missing from our planet about 3 million kilometers, about 14 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. And although this distance is surprisingly close on an astronomical scale, it does not mean that the asteroid will reach Earth – although it has a small chance to hit our planet in the future. The proximity of its Saturday passage will allow astronomers to refine their measurements of its trajectory, thus allowing more accurate calculations of its probability of collision in the future.
Gianluca Masi, scientific director of The Virtual Telescope, told Salon in a statement that amateur astronomers can see its overflight, which is at 19:54 on the East Coast, but will have to have a telescope of a diameter at least 250 millimeters. Masi said that a smaller telescope could work if it was associated with a sensitive imaging device that could also record its apparent motion through the stars.
"In the vicinity of the flyover time, the asteroid will be about 8 degrees south-southwest of the bright star Fomalhaut," said Masi in a statement. "A precise position can be retrieved via the JPL Horizons website here."
Experts at the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts, say that while it does not pose a threat to our planet today, it could be a very distant future, because its orbit will take it to several near the Earth. Asteroid 2000 QW7 was discovered by astronomers at NASA on August 8, 2000.
NASA issued a statement to the public this week to emphasize that this is not a threat, pointing out that it was actually one of the two asteroids to go to Earth this weekend. The second asteroid, the asteroid 2010 C01, should have a size between 120 and 260 meters (400 to 850 feet).
"These asteroids have been well observed – one since 2000 and the other since 2010 – and their orbits are well known," said Lindley Johnson, Global Defense Officer and Program Manager of the Coordination Office. NASA's global defense, in a statement. "These two asteroids pass about 14 lunar distances from the Earth, about 3.5 million kilometers, but small asteroids pass close to Earth at this distance."
Experts at the B612 Foundation say that these asteroids are a reminder that we must be ready, in the future, to divert one that could pose a threat to the Earth.
"We are 100 percent sure of being affected, but we are not yet, so we need to accelerate the pace of asteroid discovery," said Danica Remy, president of the B612 Foundation, in a statement. A press release.
As Salon reported previously, funding is one of the biggest obstacles to accelerating the discovery and diversion of asteroids.
"This is a problem that is very easy to solve," said Danica Remy, president of the B612 Foundation, at Salon in 2018. "When you think about big world problems, many of them will only be not as easy to solve. . . . But [asteroid impact] is [a] smaller [problem] compared to famine, war or climate change. "
John Carrico, an astrophysicist at the B612 Institute, explained at Salon that new computing capabilities have allowed scientists to better understand what types of asteroids can and can not be identified and mapped with certain telescopes. However, larger telescopes are still needed to detect all nearby asteroids, especially the smaller ones whose impact could destroy cities, without causing global extinction.
"Basically, we have not found large asteroids so far, because they are easier to see with a telescope," said Carrico. "We need more powerful telescopes to see the little ones […] There may be dozens, hundreds, thousands of asteroids on the market and we do not know where they are, but they could destroy a city or create a tsunami, "he added. .
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