SERAMBINEWS.COM, WASHINGTON DC – Asteroid the size of more than three football fields, aka the largest passing through the Earth this year, will reach its closest distance to our planet on Sunday (21/3/2021).
In astronomical terms, the asteroid is named 2001 FO32.
According to NASA, there is no threat of a collision with our planet now or in centuries to come, but it is still classified as a potentially dangerous asteroid.
“The labeling” potentially dangerous “is intended to note that an asteroid is important to track down and verify as zero (potential), which is certain,” Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Newsweek.
The closest distance to Earth today is 2 million kilometers, according to the US space agency. That’s roughly 5.25 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
“We know the 2001 FO32 orbital path around the Sun with great accuracy,” said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
NASA explains, asteroid 2001 FO32 will arrive at a speed of about 124,000 km / hr, faster than most asteroids that hit Earth.
The asteroid is estimated to have a diameter of about 900 meters, even at the smallest estimate the diameter of the space rock is roughly the equivalent of 3.5 times the area of a football field.
Launching the New York Post, this asteroid was discovered on March 23, 2001 by the Lincoln Near-Earth project Asteroid Research, a collaboration between the US Air Force, NASA, and the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.
2001 FO32 will be closest to Earth at around 16.00 GMT or 23.00 WIB on Sunday (21/3/2021), according to the Paris Observatory, the largest center for astronomical research in France.
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