NEW YORK / PARIS (dpa) – The most likely largest asteroid, which scientists estimate to approach Earth this year, will fly over our planet Sunday (March 21).
The US space agency “NASA” has announced that the celestial body “2001 FO32” with a diameter of several hundred meters will approach the Earth to about two million kilometers. This is more than five times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
According to NASA, there is no risk of a collision – neither now nor in the future. “It’s stable and not on a risky path,” said Detlev Koschen, an asteroid expert from the European Space Agency (ESA) of the German news agency DPA.
“We know very well the ‘2001 FO32’ orbit around the sun,” said Paul Chodas of the Center for the Study of Near-Earth Objects in California. “We’ve been following it since it was discovered 20 years ago.” “It is impossible for the asteroid to approach Earth more than two million kilometers.”
With the right equipment, Koschen said, amateur astronomers can also see the asteroid. Two million kilometers is nothing in the distance of the solar system.
According to the information, “2001 FO32”, which orbits the sun once every 810 days, will fly through the Earth at a speed of about 124,000 kilometers per hour – only then approaching again in 2052. NASA scientists want to take the opportunity during the flight to get a closer look at the asteroid. “We don’t know much about him,” Koschin said.
Esa has its own software for looking at things that are important to the Earth. “2001 FO32” – if not flying at a harmless distance – his size would be a perfect candidate for trying to distract him from his career to avoid a potential collision with the ground. Koschin said an asteroid this size could destroy an entire country. In comparison, the explosion of a 20-meter piece of land in 2013 caused widespread damage in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. About 1,500 people were injured in the shock wave.
Last year, Esa started an asteroid defense project named after the Greek goddess Hera. Its purpose is to study how NASA’s probe affects an asteroid.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210319-99-887947 / 2
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