The rocky body was discovered in March 2001 and its trajectory has been tracked ever since.
The largest asteroid approaching Earth in 2021 will pass about two million kilometers away this Sunday, without risk of collision, but will allow astronomers to study this celestial body.
Named 2001 FO32 and less than a kilometer in diameter, it will pass 124,000 mph, according to NASA, “faster than most asteroids” circulating close to Earth.
The rocky body will reach the closest point to our planet this Sunday at 4:02 PM GMT. Then it will be 2,016,158 km from Earth, that is, about five times the distance between Earth and Moon.
“There is no risk of colliding with our planet,” the US space agency explained. Its trajectory is “sufficiently known and regular” to exclude any danger, assure the experts of the Paris-PSL Observatory.
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However, the large rocky body is classified as “potentially dangerous,” like all asteroids whose orbits are less than 19.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon and whose diameter is greater than 140 meters.
Astronomers around the world are tirelessly “chasing” this category to develop as complete an inventory as possible, the Observatory points out, recalling that the first (and largest) asteroid, Ceres, was discovered in 1801.
The asteroid “2001 FO32” was discovered in March 2001 and has tracked its trajectory ever since. It belongs to the “Apollo” family of geocruise asteroids, which orbit the sun in at least a year and can traverse Earth’s orbit.
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“We currently know little about this object, so this very close encounter gives us an incredible opportunity to learn a lot from it,” said Lance Benner, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on which the Center for Proximate Objects Studies depends. is. of the Earth (CNEOS).
According to CNEOS, “amaterus astronomers in the southern hemisphere and in the low northern latitudes should be able to see it.”
“We should see a white point moving like a satellite,” added the astronomer. The trajectory has nothing to do with shooting stars, very small asteroids that form a luminous line that divides the sky in a fraction of a second.
None of the cataloged large asteroids have a chance of hitting Earth in the next century.
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