Novina Putri Bestari, CNBC Indonesia
Tech
Friday, 23/02/2024 21:00 WIB
Photo: Asteroid Illustration (NASA doc)
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Some time ago there was news that an asteroid the size of a school bus was at risk of hitting Earth. The United States Space Agency (NASA) has opened its voice regarding this matter.
Launching the page Space, Friday (23/2/2024), NASA included 2024 DW as a potentially dangerous asteroid group. This 13 meter object has the closest distance to Earth compared to other asteroids.
Asteroid 2024 DW was reported to be near Earth last Thursday (22/2/2024) at a distance of 225 thousand kilometers. The distance is closer than the Earth and the Moon which are 385 thousand kilometers apart.
2024 DW’s distance from Earth is indeed much closer than asteroids in a similar category. For example, there is an asteroid the size of another bus that passes a distance of 775 thousand km.
Larger, there is a jumbo jet sized asteroid 4 million km from Earth.
The asteroid 2024 DW was first discovered on February 19 2024 through a survey of Mount Lemmon. This is part of Catalina’s sky survey that tracks near-Earth asteroids that could potentially threaten Earth.
Asteroid 2024 DW was discovered using the station’s Steward Observatory in the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona. The findings were confirmed through observations with the University of Hawaii telescope at the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano.
Observations of celestial objects are commonplace. Including those that pose a risk to the Earth.
NASA has also undertaken a series of projects to understand asteroids. For example, in 2022, the DART plane successfully crashed into an asteroid to divert its orbit with the aim of saving the Earth from potential future collisions.
Another project is in September 2023. The OSIRIS-REx aircraft will bring samples from the asteroid Bennu, with the aim of finding out the composition of this space rock.
Watch the video below:
NASA Launches Supersonic Plane, Faster Than the Speed of Sound
(npb/npb)
2024-02-23 14:00:00
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