The largest asteroid to visit Earth this year is Zooming through our planet today (March 21) and is a real speed monster.
The asteroid 2001 FO32A is passing through space at an unusually fast speed for space rock, approximately 77,000 miles per hour (124,0000 kPf), and will pass through Earth in a safe range of 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers). , According to NASA. It will not come close to Earth again until 2052.
The asteroid 2001 FO32 is up to 2,230 feet (680 meters) wide and poses no impact on Earth, but its speed is fantastic, the agency said.
The reason for the asteroid’s unusually fast proximity is that it has a very protruding and elongated (or eccentric) orbit around the Sun, orbiting the Earth in an orbital plane of 39 degrees, NASA officials wrote in a statement. “This orbit is closer to the Sun than to the planet and twice as far from the Sun as Mars.”
Gianluca Auntie, an astrophysicist at the Virtual Telescope Project in Saccano, Italy, observed the asteroid 2001 FO32 with a telescope in the days before today’s flyby. Its video and images show the planet as a bright moving object object in the sky.
Video: Move the asteroid 2001 FO32 into the night sky
Like a rock under a mountain, asteroid 2001 FO32 picks up speed as it moves inward toward the Sun and slows down as it returns to Mars. The asteroid takes more than two years (for an accuracy of 810 days) to complete a planet and will not pose an impact on Earth for centuries, NASA said, despite classifying the 2001 FO32 as a “potentially dangerous asteroid.”
“We know the orbit of the 2001 FO32 around the Sun very accurately, as it was discovered 20 years ago and has been discovered ever since,” said the Earth Ject Project Study near the Center Four, operated by NASA Jet. Said Paul Chodas, Director, NEOS. Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “The planet is unlikely to come closer than 1.25 million miles to Earth.”
NASA and astronomers around the world regularly detect and track asteroids that could pose an impact on Earth. Asteroid 2001 F032 was first observed in 2001 in Soccer, New Mexico, by the Lincoln Never-Earth Asteroid Research (Linear) Program. Observations by NASA’s NEOWISE Space Telescope indicate that the asteroid is between 1,300 and 2,230 feet (440 to 680 meters).
“Even if it were at the smallest end of the scale, the 2001 FO32 would be the largest asteroid to reach our planet in 2021,” NASA officials wrote. “The last significant approach to a large asteroid was 1998 OR2 on April 29, 2020. While the 2001 FO32 is slightly lower than the 1998 OR2, it will be three times closer to Earth.”
At its closest phase to Earth today, the asteroid 2001 FO32 will be about 5.25 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. Still, astronomers will look closely at the asteroid through a telescope to learn more about its size, brightness, and composition.
“We are trying to do geology with a telescope,” said Vishnu Reddy, an associate professor at the Moon and Planets Laboratory at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Astronomers have been using NASA’s Infrared Telescope feature on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii in recent days to determine its chemical composition. They could use NASA’s Radio Dish’s Deep Space Network to measure its planet, bounce signals from asteroid 2001 FO32, determine how fast it spins and some surface features like craters.
Related: The giant asteroid Apophis was revealed in the photo
“Observations from 20 years ago have shown that the lunar banner is about 15% smaller than the size of Earth’s asteroids, compared to 2001 FO32,” said Lance Banner, JPL’s chief scientist. “Currently very little is known about this object object, so a very close encounter provides an excellent opportunity to learn a great deal about this asteroid.”
Asteroids can also be seen by amateur astronomers in the Southern Hemisphere as they pass through Earth, but it can be a challenge to track.
“The asteroid will be bright when it passes through the southern sky,” Chodas said. “Amateur astronomers in the Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes should be able to see the planet using a medium-sized telescope with a hole of at least 8 inches in the night, leading to closer approaches, but they will probably need star charts to find it.”
The asteroid 2001 FO32 is one of only two asteroids passing through Earth today, according to NASA’s Asteroid and Watch website, which lists flybies. The second asteroid, called the 2021 FH1, is about 97 feet (30 m) wide and will pass through Earth at a distance of 973,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers). It was first discovered by astronomers on Friday (March 19).
Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him on tariqjmalik. Follow us. Spydotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
