A ‘potentially dangerous’ asteroid is on the way

A 'potentially dangerous' asteroid is on the way

A giant asteroid said “potentially dangerous” to sweep the globe on Thursday of this week NASA.

The asteroid should be between 350 and 780 meters in diameter – which can be twice the diameter of the Empire State Building.

On a more local scale, this corresponds nearly seven times as much as Oslo Plaza.

– within a stone’s throw

The asteroid, designated 418135 (2008 AG33), will break through Earth’s orbit at 37,400 kilometers per hour – or more than 30 times the speed of sound.

Fortunately, the asteroid is only expected to orbit the planet, without actually hitting us.

write the scientific site Live Science.

At its closest point, the asteroid will be 3.2 million km from Earth, which is one-eighth of the distance to the Moon.

– This may seem like a great distance, but on a cosmic scale this is just a stone’s throw away, the site writes.

‘Potentially dangerous’

NASA registers all space objects within 193 million kilometers as “Near-Earth Objects”, or “NEO” in English.

All space objects within 7.5 million kilometers are automatically classified as “hazardous”.

If an asteroid is classified as “potentially dangerous,” astronomers will pay close attention to how it moves, to make sure it doesn’t end up on a collision course with Earth.

The asteroid that passed through Earth Thursday was first discovered on January 12, 2008 by asteroid scientists at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter Observatory in Arizona.

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The asteroid orbits in front of us about every seven years, and the last time it “visited” was in March 2015. It is expected to pass again on May 25, 2029.

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Bigger is on the way!

However, this is not the largest asteroid that will pass us in the near future. On May 9, a larger boulder comes flying above the Earth at a speed of 40,700 kilometers per hour.

This weight is called 467460 (2006 JF42) and its calculated diameter is between 380 and 860 meters.

The thought of an asteroid bound for Earth could make anyone sweat. If you’ve seen the movie “Armageddon” it probably wouldn’t make it any better.

But if astronomers have indeed found an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, then solutions are being worked on around the world to transform the object.

In November 2021, NASA launched a spacecraft as part of the Double Asteroid Redirect Test mission, which will attempt to alter the course of an asteroid not classified as dangerous to us.

terrifying asteroid

The plan is to get rid of it by crashing into it, according to Live Science.

China is also working on its own plans.

Their target is the terrifying asteroid Bennu, according to Site.

Benno weighs 77.5 million tons and is as tall as the Empire State Building. If it hits the ground, the result will be disastrous.

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It is estimated that it will crash with a force of 1200 megatons. It is 80,000 times higher than the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima.

– It is possible to change the path

Fortunately, there is little risk of that happening, and for most of us, he didn’t have much to say. Bennu won’t get close to Earth until sometime between 2175 and 2199.

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If all goes as China plans, it may never happen.

China has plans to divert the asteroid from a potentially catastrophic collision by smashing 23 of its Long March 5 rockets directly into the asteroid.

The accounts of the Chinese researchers were published in the scientific journal Icarus Magazine In November 2021.

– This concept makes it possible to change the course of large Bennu-like asteroids without the use of nuclear power within a period of ten years, they wrote.

Dalila Awolowo

Dalila Awolowo

"Explorer. Unapologetic entrepreneur. Alcohol fanatic. Certified writer. Wannabe tv evangelist. Twitter fanatic. Student. Web scholar. Travel buff."

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