Close Encounter: Nearly 300-Meter Asteroid Passes Earth
A potentially hazardous asteroid, designated 2025 FA22, made a close approach to Earth this Thursday, according to reports from the Solar astronomy Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of Russia. The asteroid, estimated to be between 130 and 290 meters in diameter, passed within approximately 800,000 kilometers of Earth and the Moon at 10:41 Moscow time (04:41 Chilean time).
This flyby is considered one of the closest approaches by an asteroid of this size in recorded history. Russian scientists noted it was one of the largest such events to occur within a distance of less than one million kilometers. For context, the asteroid responsible for the Barringer Crater in Arizona, formed roughly 50,000 years ago, was estimated to be between 10 and 100 times smaller.
The asteroid is categorized as a potentially hazardous object due to its size and orbit.Astronomers have calculated that 2025 FA22 is ”in a certain sense synchronized with the Earth,” periodically coming close to the planet. it was last observed on September 17, 1940, and is predicted to return on September 2173.
While the current trajectory indicates a “tiny” probability of impact, scientists acknowledge that the asteroid’s orbit presents a relatively high potential for future Earth impacts. The next close approach is predicted for August 20, 2036, at a distance 25 times greater than this recent pass. More significant close approaches are anticipated in 2089 and particularly in 2173.
Despite its size, the laboratory stated the current probability of impact is “null.” The event was observable with the aid of a 300 millimeter telescope for experienced amateur and professional astronomers. The asteroid is approximately 1,000 times larger than the meteorite that fell in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013.
