Largest asteroid that flew past Earth in 2021 ‘Potentially dangerous’

Mark your calendars, guys, because the biggest known asteroid of 2021 will pass the earth on March 21 and is said to be ‘dangerous’.

The space rock – known as 2001 FO32 – is one of many near-Earth objects (NEOs) orbiting the sun, just as our planet does.

Usually NEOs are within 30 million miles – just to put it in context, the distance around the earth at the equator is just under 25,000 miles, so NEOs are a tall far away.

According to NASA, there are about 25,000 identified NEOs and more than 2,100 are considered ‘potentially dangerous’ – just like the asteroid on March 21.

According to Newsweek, potentially dangerous NEOs are orbits that orbit the earth’s own path around the sun to within 4.6 million miles, while also measuring greater than about 460 feet in diameter.

It appears that 2001 FO32 met both criteria to make it ‘potentially dangerous’, but this is apparently only the case so that they can be traced ‘for decades’ to ‘study how their orbits can develop’, according to CNEOS director Paul Chodas.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California estimates that it has a diameter of 2,526 feet (0.57 miles) and 5,577 feet (1.05 miles).

If you still have to rest, NASA said that potentially dangerous asteroids ‘are defined on the basis of parameters that measure the potential of the asteroid to approach threatening approaches to Earth’.

NASA continues: “Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbital crossing distance (MOID) of 0.05 au or less are considered PHAs.

‘Sometimes asteroids’ orbital paths are affected by the gravity of planets, which causes their paths to change.

“Scientists believe stray asteroids or fragments of earlier collisions have struck the Earth in the past and played an important role in the evolution of our planet.”

According to reports, the asteroid will be approximately 11 million miles from Earth at 11.03 am ET (which is 16:00 GMT).