“It could be the closest asteroid to Earth in the next 200 years.”
An asteroid with a width of 1 km was observed to pass close to Earth at 6:51 a.m. on the 19th (Korean time).
Citing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), CNN reported on the 12th that the asteroid will pass by the Earth at a speed of about 76,000 kilometers per hour and is expected to come close to the Earth as far as 1.93 million kilometers.
First discovered in 1994, the asteroid was named 7482 (1994 PC1).
NASA said the asteroid is unlikely to collide with Earth, but it will be the closest asteroid to Earth in the next 200 years.
(EPA = Yonhap News) An image of NASA’s ‘Dual Asteroid Orbital Correction Experiment’ (DART) spacecraft approaching the asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos close to Earth. DART is the first human experiment to approach an asteroid and correct its orbit by colliding with the Earth to prevent a catastrophe. NASA is scheduled to launch the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dart spacecraft from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 10:21 pm on the 23rd (3:21 pm Korean time) on the 23rd. [NASA 제공. 판매 금지] 2021.11.24 sungok@yna.co.kr
The closest time an asteroid will pass the Earth is 4:51 p.m. Eastern time on the 18th. It is 6:51 a.m. on the 19th in Korea time.
It is impossible to see the asteroid with the naked eye, but it could be seen with a small astronomical telescope, CNN said, citing a related Internet site.
This is not the largest asteroid that has passed Earth.
3122 Florence (1981 ET3), which moved away from Earth on October 1, 2017 (Eastern Time in the United States), was observed to reach a width of 4 to 8.8 km. The asteroid will pass Earth again on October 2, 2057.
Currently, NASA is conducting the ‘Double Asteroid Orbital Correction Experiment (DART)’, a project to prevent an asteroid impact on Earth. This is part of the Earth’s defense strategy to prevent asteroid impact disasters such as the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
NASA’s DART spacecraft was launched on October 21 last year, and in September this year, it will test whether it can change the orbital time by colliding with ‘Dimorphos’ orbiting the near-Earth asteroid ‘Didymos’.
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