An asteroid roughly the size of a family house will fly close to Earth on Monday. NASA and the European Space Agency register it as a near-Earth object, but it does not pose a risk to our planet. The asteroid is newly discovered, astronomers first noticed it only a few days ago.
Although most of the asteroids in the Solar System are found in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, a number of them are located in near-Earth orbits. This also applies to asteroid 2023 EV2, which astronomers discovered only recently. Its existence was noticed last week on Tuesday, he reports European Space Agency (ESA)which the body registers on its list of priorities within the Coordination Center for Near-Earth Objects.
Asteroid position on Monday, March 20, 2023 | Source: ESA
The date of the closest approach to the Earth is March 20, the day of the spring equinox, when it will pass by our planet at a distance of 1.7 million kilometers (for comparison, the Moon is 385 thousand kilometers from the Earth). Asteroid 2023 EV2 has i NASAwhich tracks all objects that come relatively close to Earth.
NASA compared the size of the body to a family house, its diameter is roughly 20 meters. A slightly smaller asteroid came closer to Earth on Sunday, at a distance of almost seven million kilometers.
On the same day, another one whizzed past our planet, this time at a close proximity of 350,000 kilometers. So it was closer to us than the moon. But its size was very small by cosmic standards, NASA compared it to a car.
Neither space agency lists 2023 EV2 as risky. According to NASA, a potentially dangerous object is one that orbits within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth and is larger than 150 meters. List of risk bodies, which have some probability of collision with our planet, ESA also has. It currently has 1,461 objects on it.
NASA is worried about an approaching asteroid. It was supposed to hit Earth right on Valentine’s Day:
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