Asteroid the dimensions of the Golden Gate Bridge will whiz previous Earth in March
The area rock, formally known as 231937 (2001 FO32), is about 0.5 to 1 mile (0.8 to 1.7 kilometers) in diameter and can come inside 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) of Earth at 11:03 a.m. EST (1603 GMT) on March 21 — shut sufficient and enormous sufficient to be categorised as “probably hazardous,” in keeping with a database revealed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Small asteroids cross between Earth and the moon a number of occasions a month, and their fragments enter and break up in Earth’s environment virtually every day, in keeping with NASA’s Planetary Protection Coordination Workplace (PDCO).
Telescopes in New Mexico which can be a part of the Lincoln Close to-Earth Asteroid Analysis (LINEAR) program — an MIT Lincoln Laboratory program funded by the U.S. Air Pressure and NASA — detected the asteroid on March 23, 2001, in keeping with EarthSky. Observatories have monitored it ever since. Scientists used these observations to calculate the asteroid’s orbit and decide how shut the area rock will come to Earth when it whizzes by at virtually 77,000 mph (124,000 km/h).
No recognized asteroid poses a big threat to Earth for the following 100 years. The present greatest recognized risk is an asteroid known as (410777) 2009 FD, which has a 1 in 714 (lower than 0.2%) likelihood of hitting Earth in 2185, in keeping with NASA’s PDCO.
NASA is learning strategies of deflecting asteroids that do find yourself on a collision course with Earth, equivalent to through the use of the gravity of a flying spacecraft to slowly pull asteroids off their trajectory to a secure distance, in keeping with NASA’s PDCO.
When you’ve got a telescope with an aperture of at the very least 8 inches (20 centimeters), you may have the ability to spot the fast-moving area rock, in keeping with EarthSky. To catch a glimpse within the southern U.S., level your telescope south-southeast between the constellations of Sagittarius and Corona Australis at 4:45 a.m. EST on March 20.
Initially revealed on Reside Science.
