Biggest asteroid to fly over Earth in 2021 is ‘potentially dangerous’

Jot down your calendars, guys, because the largest known asteroid of 2021 will pass Earth on March 21 and is said to be “ potentially dangerous. ”

Space rock – known as FO32 2001 – is one of many near-Earth objects (NEOs) that orbit the sun, just like our planet.

Usually, NEOs are within 30 million miles – just to put that in context, the distance around Earth to the equator is just under 25,000 miles, so NEOs are one long far.

According to NASA, around 25,000 near-Earth objects are identified and more than 2,100 are classified as “potentially dangerous” – just like the March 21 asteroid.

Potentially dangerous near-Earth objects, according to Newsweek, are those whose orbits approach Earth’s path around the sun to within 4.6 million kilometers, while also measuring more than about 460 feet in diameter.

It appears that the FO32 2001 meets both criteria to make it “ potentially dangerous ” but apparently this is only the case so that they can be tracked “ for decades ” to “ study how their orbits might evolve, ” according to CNEOS director Paul Chodas.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California estimates that it measures between 2,526 feet (0.47 miles) and 5,577 feet (1.05 miles) in diameter.

If you still need your mind to calm down, NASA said potentially dangerous asteroids are “ defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to make threatening approaches to Earth. ”

NASA continued: “Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbital intersection distance (MOID) of 0.05 AU or less are considered PHAs.

“Sometimes the orbital trajectories of asteroids are influenced by the gravitational pulling of the planets, which changes their trajectory.

“Scientists believe that stray asteroids or fragments of previous collisions have struck Earth in the past, playing a major role in the evolution of our planet.”

According to reports, the asteroid will be about 1.2 million kilometers from Earth at 11:03 a.m. ET (or 4:03 p.m. GMT).