Monitorindonesia.com – A giant asteroid is moving and weeks can be seen as it passes close to Earth. However, the United States Space Agency (NASA) said people around the world need not worry about it.
The giant asteroid is scheduled to fly past Earth on January 18 and is currently being monitored under NASA’s Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) center, which identifies and tracks large space rocks that pose a potential threat to the planet.
Fortunately, and like events asteroid other close, NASA says we needn’t worry. Asteroid 7482 will travel at a high speed of about 47,000 MPH.
As the name suggests, this giant asteroid, first discovered in 1994 (via Space Reference), is categorized as a near-Earth object and NASA considers it possibly dangerous because of its relatively close trajectory to Earth.
Even so, it will only be within about 1.2 million miles of Earth. That is a great distance, but in terms of space it is considered a short distance.
Experts believe the asteroid will not hit Earth as it approaches next week, even when it returns about 200 years from now, as quoted from Slashgear, Thursday (13/1/2022).
Can be seen
Knowing the asteroid will not impact the earth and trigger a series of events that are truly catastrophic, the good news is that people on earth will be able to see the celestial phenomenon occur.
But they must have a telescope and be in an environment with good weather. EarthSky reports that a small telescope should be sufficient to observe the asteroid as it passes through Earth.
For those in North America, the best time to see an asteroid is probably around 10pm EST on January 18th.
Amateur astronomers are advised to point their telescopes at the star HIP 7011, then wait a few minutes and watch closely the asteroid will pass very close to its star.
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