Harianjogja.com, JAKARTA – A large asteroid crossing Earth at a fairly high speed on March 21, 2021.
According to NASA, the asteroid, dubbed 2001 FO32, is traveling at a speed of about 77,000 mph (124,0000 kph), and past Earth at a safe distance of 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers). NASA officials say FO32 will approach Earth at the same distance in 2052.
The 2001 FO32 asteroid is up to 2,230 feet (680 meters) wide and poses no risk of impact to Earth, but its speed is considered odd. “The reason the asteroid is approaching so fast is its very tilted and elongated (or eccentric) orbit around the sun, an orbit that is tilted 39 degrees to the plane of Earth’s orbit,” wrote NASA officials quoted from Space.com, Monday (22/3/2021)
This orbit is said to bring the asteroid closer to the sun than Mercury and twice as far from the sun to Mars.
Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy saw the asteroid 2001 FO32 with a telescope in the days before his visit to Earth. The video and images show the asteroid as a bright moving object in the sky.
Like a rock rolling down a hill, the 2001 FO32 asteroid accelerates as it falls toward the sun and then slows down on its return to Mars. The asteroid takes more than two years (810 days to be precise) to complete one orbit and would pose no risk to Earth for centuries, even though in 2001 it was classified FO32 as a potentially dangerous asteroid.
“We know the 2001 FO32 orbital path around the sun with great accuracy, since it was discovered 20 years ago and have been traced since then,” said Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) director Paul Chodas.
NASA and astronomers around the world regularly search for and track asteroids that pose an impact hazard to Earth. Asteroid 2001 F032 was first discovered in 2001 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program in Socorro, New Mexico. Observations by NASA’s NEOWISE space telescope show that the asteroid is between 1,300 and 2,230 feet (440 to 680 m) wide.
“Despite its smaller size, 2001 FO32 will still be the largest asteroid to pass our planet this close in 2021,” wrote the NASA official.
The last very large asteroid approach was 1998 OR2 on April 29, 2020. Although 2001 FO32 is somewhat smaller than 1998 OR2, it is three times closer to Earth.
At its current closest point to Earth, the asteroid 2001 FO32 is about 5.25 times the distance between the earth and the moon. However, astronomers observed the asteroid closely with a telescope to learn more about its size, brightness and composition. “We’re trying to do geology with a telescope,” said Vishnu Reddy, professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson.
Astronomers have so far used NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility over Mauna Kea in Hawaii in recent days to determine its chemical composition. They also used NASA’s Deep Space Network radio dish to bounce signals from the 2001 FO32 asteroid to measure its orbit, how fast it rotates, and even pinpoint some surface features such as craters.
Lance Benner, principal scientist at JPL said observations dating back 20 years revealed that about 15 percent of near-Earth asteroids comparable in size to 2001 FO32 have small moons.
Benner said the asteroid might also be visible to amateur astronomers in the Southern Hemisphere and at northern latitudes using medium-sized telescopes that have holes at least 8 inches deep at night.
Source: JIBI / Bisnis Indonesia
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