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NOTIF.ID, TEKNO – This large asteroid will make its closest approach in 2021 to planet Earth, on Sunday, March 21, 2021.
However, scientists have told people not to panic. Because, the asteroid does not pose a threat to planet Earth.
Reporting from Aljazeera, The giant space rock (2001 FO32) has a diameter of several hundred meters and will approach Earth at a distance of about two million kilometers (1.2 million miles), said the US space agency NASA.
Detlef Koschny, an asteroid expert at the European Space Agency, said that the distance is more than five times the distance from Earth to the moon.
“It’s stable, not on a risky path,” he said.
He continued, said Koschny to the news agency DPA say, celestial bodies will be available for amateur astronomers to see with the right equipment.
“We know the 2001 FO32 orbital path around the sun with great accuracy, since it was discovered 20 years ago and have been tracked ever since,” said Center for Near Earth Object Studies Director Paul Chodas, which is run by NASA Jet. Propulsion Laboratory in southern California.
For information, Asteroid 2001 FO32 orbits the sun every 810 days. This asteroid will fly past Earth at a speed of about 124,000 km / h (77,000 mph).
NASA said, after passing planet Earth on Sunday, the 2001 FO32 asteroid will continue its journey and will not approach Earth again until 2052.
Scientists also plan to use flyby to study asteroids more closely.
“We don’t know much about that,” said Koschny, adding that a closer look at FO32 2001 will help astronomers working on asteroid deflection projects.
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