Asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1, one to 1.3 kilometers wide, is considered “potentially dangerous” by NASA. It is classified in this way due to the fact that its diameter is greater than 140 meters and it approaches us less than five percent of the Earth’s distance from the Sun. (The average distance between our planet and the Sun is about 150 million km – ed. Note)
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In addition, the Davidson Institute of Science Education in Israel has previously calculated that, in general, an asteroid just over “only” 140 meters would release at least a thousand times more energy in a collision than the first atomic bomb after hitting the earth’s surface.
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And a body more than 300 meters wide could destroy the entire continent, Reuters reports.
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The clash is almost impossible
But a clash is completely unlikely, scientists reassure. The closest distance that the 7482 is likely to approach Earth is more than five times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
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However, it is not the only potentially dangerous or at least noticeable asteroid that will fly around our planet this month.
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E.g. asteroid 2013 YD48 – according to NASA data – with a length of 80 to 180 meters will fly around the Earth on January 12 at a distance of about 5.59 million kilometers and about 84-190-meter asteroid 2017 XC62 will fly on January 24 at a distance of about 7.2 million km.
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If we are interested in the exact times of the largest approaches of these bodies to the Earth, then they are as follows:
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- (7482) 1994 PC1 – 18. 1. 22:50 CET
- 2013 YD48 – 12. 1. 00:47 CET
- 2017 XC62 – 24. 1. 17:06 CET
Petr Pravec, the leader of the asteroid group at the Department of Interplanetary Matter of the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, informed about the exact times of the next flights.
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During January, about a dozen larger cosmic bodies will take a “close flyby” around us – some of which will be only a few meters in size. Object 7482 is clearly the largest of them.
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