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An amateur astronomer from Brazil discovered the large “potentially dangerous” asteroid that passed safely by Earth this week on Thursday (September 10).
The asteroid, called 2020 QU6, is about 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) wide, or large enough to cause a global catastrophe if it hits Earth. However, it did not pose any risk to our planet, as it passed through the planet at a distance of more than 20 million miles (40 million kilometers), which is more than 100 times the distance between Earth and the Moon, according to a statement from the Planetary Society.
“In the news, we hear more and more often about asteroid discoveries primarily because we are getting better at finding and tracking near-Earth asteroids,” Bruce Betts, chief scientist at The Planetary Society, said in the statement. “Suddenly there are no more asteroids, we are just getting better seeing them.”
Related: This is how two Indian schoolgirls discovered a ‘Mars-Crosser’ asteroid
Asteroid 2020 QU6 was discovered on August 27 by amateur astronomer Leonardo Amaral at the Campo dos Amarais observatory near Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2019, Amaral received an $ 8,500 grant from The Planetary Society to purchase better telescope equipment that would allow him to find, track and characterize near-Earth objects (NEO) more effectively.
Amaral’s location in the southern hemisphere also offers a unique vantage point for finding such a large asteroid, as many professional asteroid hunting celestial studies are located in the northern hemisphere, according to the statement.
While NASA and other major agencies track asteroids, the discovery of asteroid 2020 QU6 so close to its approach to Earth serves as a reminder of the need to support ground-based astronomers like Amaral. Casey Dreier, Senior Advocate and Senior Advisor for Space Policy at The Planetary Society, also noted the importance of investing in new space capabilities, such as NASA’s NEO surveillance mission, or NEOSM, which is a space telescope designed to find and track nearby threats. -Terrestrial objects.
“This discovery reminds us that while we have found most of the large near-Earth objects, we have not found all of them,” Dreier said in the statement.
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