Large asteroid passing Earth on March 21: NASA

The largest asteroid to pass Earth this year will approach within about 1.25 million miles (two million kilometers) from our planet on March 21, NASA said Thursday.

The US space agency said it will allow astronomers to get a closer look at an asteroid.

The asteroid, 2001 FO32, is estimated to be about 3,000 feet in diameter and was discovered 20 years ago, NASA said.

“We know very accurately the 2001 FO32 orbit path around the sun,” said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies. “There is no chance the asteroid will get closer to Earth than 1.25 million miles.”

That’s about 5.25 times the distance from Earth to the Moon, but still close enough to classify FO32 as a “potentially dangerous asteroid” in 2001.

NASA said 2001 FO32 will pass at about 77,000 miles per hour faster than the speed at which most asteroids meet Earth.

“Little is currently known about this object, so the very close encounter provides an excellent opportunity to learn a lot about this asteroid,” said Lance Benner, chief scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA said astronomers hope to better understand the size of the asteroid and get a rough idea of ​​its composition by studying light reflected off its surface.

“When sunlight hits the surface of an asteroid, minerals in the rock absorb some wavelengths while reflecting others,” NASA said. “By studying the spectrum of light that bounces off the surface, astronomers can measure the chemical ‘fingerprints’ of the minerals on the asteroid’s surface.”

Amateur astronomers in some parts of the world should be able to make their own observations.

“The asteroid will be brightest as it moves across the southern sky,” Chodas said.

“Amateur astronomers in the Southern Hemisphere and low Northern latitudes should be able to see this asteroid using medium-sized telescopes with at least eight inches aperture in the nights leading up to the closest approach, but they will likely need star charts to find it.”

NASA said more than 95 percent of near-Earth asteroids the size of 2001 are FO32 or larger, and none of them have any chance of affecting our planet in the next century.

© 2021 AFP