Today, Thursday, August 20, 2020, the Earth will witness the transit of a newly discovered asteroid called 2020 PY2 Its diameter is 20 meters, moving at a speed of 17.1 kilometers per second and will fall at a distance of 345,600 kilometers, which means that it will pass safely and there is no risk of colliding with the ground and will not be detected with the naked eye .
For comparison, this asteroid is the same size as the asteroid that penetrated the sky of Russia in February 2013 and exploded at a low altitude and released from it a very high energy that caused a shock wave in the sky that led to the shattering of the glass of buildings and human injuries due to flying glass and the arrival of small pieces of the remnants of that space rock to the surface of the earth in Image of meteorites.
And it takes advantage of such opportunities to learn more about asteroids, such as the nature of their formation.These bodies are like a time machine from the remnants of our solar system that retain many secrets of that era and can tell us more about the origin of our planet.
In addition, monitoring asteroid movement is an excellent opportunity to test international capabilities to detect and track near-Earth objects and assess our ability to respond together to any real threat to any asteroid in the future..
It is worth noting that small asteroids approaching the Earth are likely to be affected by the Earth’s orbit, an effect called “assisting gravity” and used by space agencies to help propel spacecraft to different places in our solar system.
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