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The Earth has been visited by the largest asteroid that will pass by throughout the year.
The object known as 2001 FO32 approached about 1.25 million miles from Earth, more than five times closer than the Moon, on March 21.
Although that may seem far away, it is relatively close in astronomical terms. The object has been designated as a “potentially dangerous asteroid” by NASA, although experts warn that there is no possibility of it hitting our planet, not this time or in the future.
You can be sure of our safety because the object has been known for 20 years (2001 in its name refers to the year it was discovered) and its orbit has been accurately tracked and projected into the future.
The asteroid flew by at just under 80,000 mph, unusually fast and accelerated for its long orbit around the Sun. That’s just over two years at a time, and its journey means it won’t get that close to Earth again until 2052.
Although scientists are not sure of the exact size of the asteroid (it is probably between 440 and 680 meters wide), it is almost certainly the largest asteroid to come this close this year. The last comparable visit occurred in April of last year, when he visited an object known as 1998 OR2, which was larger than the last object but also three times as far away.
The proximity gives NASA and other researchers a valuable opportunity to study a rock that formed at the beginning of the early solar system.
The researchers will use the data collected during the pass to learn more about its size, how reflective it is and what it could be made of. The researchers do this by looking at the wavelengths of light that are reflected when the sun hits the asteroid and comparing that spectrum with similar objects on Earth.
The researchers will also scan it using radar observations. That will give more detailed information on how big it could be, its orbit, and even if it carries its own moon, as 15 percent of similarly-sized asteroids do.
Such research is valuable in part because it enables scientists to better understand the threat these asteroids can pose to Earth. NASA says it has found 95 percent of near-Earth asteroids similar in size to FO32 from 2001, and that none of those found pose any danger to Earth.
But NASA and other agencies continue to search for the remaining asteroids, and learning more about them would help inform any response if such an object posed a threat, helping design missions that would aim to divert them elsewhere in space, for example.
