A giant asteroid, believed to be as wide as the Empire State Building, will zip to Earth this weekend. But experts believe there is no reason to be vigilant, even though it is technically classified as a “potentially dangerous asteroid.”
“There is no threat of a collision with our planet now or for centuries to come,” officials from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement issued earlier this month.
Despite being designated an ‘near-Earth asteroid’, this massive space system, known as 2001 FO32, will orbit at a super-fast velocity of about 1.25 million miles from our planet on Sunday, March 21, NASA noted . It is more than five times the distance between the earth and the moon.
“We know the 2001 FO32 orbit around the sun very accurately, as it was discovered 20 years ago and has been followed ever since,” said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, run by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “There is no chance that the asteroid will come closer to Earth than 1.25 million miles.”
In astronomical measurements, however, it is considered a close call.
A large asteroid, known as 2001 FO32, will speed up to Earth this weekend and follow its closest approach on Sunday, March 21st. Experts believe that there is no threat of a collision with our planet.Photo illustration by Buddy Nath | Pixabay
Where do asteroids come from
Asteroids are solid, rocky objects that revolve around our sun. “These are remnants left over from the formation of our solar system,” NASA explains. “They can be about as wide as a car to about as wide as the state of Utah.” (If you’re wondering, Utah is about 270 miles wide and 350 miles long.)
Most asteroids that fly around in our solar system come from a rocky region called the Asteroid Belt, NASA says. “This vast, annular ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter contains hundreds of thousands of asteroids – perhaps even millions.”
The Center for Near Earth Object Studies, known as CNEOS, uses telescopes on Earth and in space to hold tablets over all the asteroids and comets that line the universe – and to search for new ones that have not yet been identified. It is their job to determine if any of the space objects could pose a risk to our planet.
The asteroid, known as 2001 FO32, will move as fast as 77,000 miles per hour. NASA says this space rock will only return to our region of the solar system in 2052.
When it was discovered in March 2001, the asteroid was estimated to be about 3,000 feet wide. A later analysis calculated its width between 1,300 and 2,230 feet.
By comparison, the Empire State Building is 1,454 feet long, including the point. The Freedom Tower in the World Trade Center complex in lower Manhattan stretches 1,776 feet high.
A major asteroid, known as 2001 FO32, will speed up to Earth this weekend and follow its closest approach on Sunday, March 21st. Experts believe that there is no threat of a collision with our planet.Photo illustration by Frantisek Krejci | Pixabay
How to see the giant asteroid
Although this asteroid is huge, astronomers say it will be difficult to see – especially from the northern United States and other parts of the northern hemisphere.
“It’s not going to be easy for us to see in New Jersey or most of the United States,” said Amie Gallagher, director of the planetarium at Raritan Valley Community College in Somerset County.
‘For observers in New Jersey, the asteroid will be only about six or seven degrees above its southern horizon at its highest altitude. It will also not be very clear, ”Gallagher remarked. ‘You need an 8-inch or larger telescope to detect the asteroid. It will be more easily observed in the southern hemisphere or lower northern hemisphere. ”
The large asteroid will be closest to Earth around noon on Sunday, but Gallagher said the best time for astronauts to do so would be when the sky is dark, about 3 a.m. Sunday. She said the asteroid would be in front of the stars of the constellation Lupus, which is next to Scorpius.
If you do not live in the right geographical region or if you do not have a strong telescope, you have another option to see the giant asteroid. You can watch a live video stream planned by the Virtual Telescope Project, an online observatory in Rome.
According to the Virtual Telescope Project, the asteroid will be displayed for a few hours early Monday morning, when the space rock will complete its flight past Earth. The video stream will start at 04:00 UTC, it’s midnight Sunday for our people in the eastern daylight zone.
“The asteroid will be the brightest as it moves through the southern sky,” said Chodas, the man who heads the Center for Near-Earth Objects Studies.
“Amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere and at low northern latitudes should be able to see this asteroid using medium-sized telescopes with diaphragms of at least eight centimeters in the nights that follow the closest approach,” Chodas said, “but they will probably need star charts to find it. ”
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Len Melisurgo can be reached at [email protected].