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This year’s largest asteroid hovered over Earth at 77,000 mph on Sunday.
The celestial object, which had been designated a “potentially dangerous asteroid” by NASA’s planetary defense coordination office, did not come too close, however.
“We know very precisely the orbital path of the 2001 FO32 around the Sun, because it was discovered 20 years ago and has been tracked ever since,” said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Studies on Near Objects at the Sun. Earth (CNEOS), which is managed. by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “There is no chance that the asteroid will approach Earth within 1.25 million kilometers.”
WHAT MARS ROVER PERSEVERANCE HAS ACHIEVED UP TO
The asteroid, which orbits every 810 days, reached its closest point on Sunday, but the rock was still more than five times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
This close call will allow for a scientific study of the asteroid.
Said Lance Benner, senior scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: “Currently, little is known about this object, so the very close encounter offers an exceptional opportunity to learn a lot about this asteroid.”
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Lucky astronomers can attend the tour.
“The asteroid will be the brightest as it moves across the southern sky,” Chodas said. “Amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere and at lower northern latitudes should be able to see this asteroid using medium-sized telescopes with apertures of at least 8 inches in the nights leading up to the closest approach. , but they’ll probably need star maps to find it. “
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