This time, an asteroid has indeed grazed the Earth. On Sunday August 16, the asteroid named ZTF0DxQ then renamed 2020 HQ passed about 2,900 kilometers from the blue planet, Sunday August 16, reports the site Numerama .
A close overview
This celestial object about 3 m wide was spotted during a sky survey carried out by the Palomar Observatory in California. When 2020 HQ passed close to Earth, it was 132 times closer to us than the Moon.
“This is the closest flight that has ever hit our planet”, argues physics professor and amateur astronomer Tony Dunn.
Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ passed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby that didn’t hit our planet.@renerpho
Simulation: https://t.co/a81R100OwV
Higher-res GIF: https://t.co/4Wxn0YNpVb pic.twitter.com/SMtVRbjYOA— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) August 17, 2020
This asteroid, which moves at a speed of 12.4 kilometers per second, was identified 6 hours after its passage. “The asteroid approached without being detected from the direction of the Sun”, explains Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA, to Business Insider .
According to this scientist, there is not much you can do to spot the asteroids coming in that direction. “Asteroids are detected only using optical telescopes, and we can only search for them in the night sky”, says Paul Chodas.
Such an asteroid, due to its size, would probably not have represented a danger if it had struck Earth. Upon entering our atmosphere, 2020 HQ would have largely vaporized.
> Read also: The world’s oldest asteroid crater is in Australia
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