An Asteroid the Size of the Eiffel Tower Will Hurry Up to Earth, Potentially Dangerous

Then the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA categorizes this asteroid as a “potentially hazardous” asteroid or Potential Hazardous Object (PHO).

NASA states, any extraterrestrial object that is within 193 million kilometers of Earth as a “near -earth object” and a fast -moving object within a distance of 7.5 million kilometers as an asteroid “potentially dangerous.”

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According to NASA, an asteroid called Nereus has come closer to Earth in the last 20 years.

The celestial bodies, which are mostly composed of rocks, will be 3.86 million kilometers away, or about 10 times the distance between the earth and the moon.

Astronomers monitor celestial objects closely, then look for trajectories that are predicted to put them on a collision course with Earth.

Nereus itself was first discovered in 1982, and its orbit is at a distance of 1.82 solar years. The orbit brings this asteroid close to Earth almost every 10 years.

NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA once considered collecting samples from Nereus using the Hayabusa JAXA spacecraft because this asteroid is fairly frequent in the solar system.

However, the two space agencies ultimately chose the asteroid 25143 Itokawa for sampling.

Reporting from CNET, NASA predicts that after this week, Nereus will approach Earth again on March 2, 2031 and November 2050.

Neurus’s closer visit to the solar system is projected to occur on February 14, 2060, when the asteroid is about 1.2 million kilometers from Earth.

At that time, this space rock will be three times the distance between the moon and Earth, making it very close to our planet.

To ward off threats from celestial bodies such as Neurus that is moving toward Earth, NASA is working on a solution. One of them is launching a spacecraft as part of a Multiple Asteroid Diversion Test (DART) mission to change the asteroid’s path by crashing out of Earth’s orbit.

In addition to NASA, China is also currently in the early planning stages to carry out a mission to hit an asteroid. It proposed that it would crash 23 Long March 5 rockets into the asteroid Bennu.

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Quoted from Live Science, China’s Long March 5 rocket is said to be deflecting the asteroid Bennu, eliminating the potential for a collision that could cause a disaster on earth.

To note, citing kompas.com, an asteroid is a rocky object that revolves around the sun. It is also referred to as a planetoid or minor planet, but its size is too small to be called a planet.

There are millions of asteroids of varying sizes in space. (C)

Reporter: Fitrah Nugraha

Editor: Haerani Hambali

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