Largest asteroid to fly past Earth in 2021 ‘Potentially dangerous’

Watch your calendars, guys, because the largest known asteroid of 2021 will pass Earth on March 21 and it is said to be ‘potentially dangerous’.

The space rock – known as 2001 FO32 – is one of many near-earth objects (NEOs) that orbit the sun, just like our planet.

Usually NEOs are within 30 million miles – to put this into context, the distance around the Earth at the equator is only 25,000 miles, so NEOs are one long far away.

According to NASA, there are about 25,000 identified NEOs and more than 2,100 are classified as ‘potentially dangerous’ – just like the March 21 asteroid.

According to Newsweek, potentially dangerous NEOs are those with orbits that approach Earth’s own path around the sun to within 4.6 million miles, while also being larger than about 460 feet in diameter.

It appears that 2001’s FO32 meets both criteria to make it ‘potentially dangerous’, but apparently this is only so that they can be followed ‘for decades’ to ‘study how their jobs are evolving,’ said CNEOS director Paul Chodas.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California estimates it to be between 2,526 feet (0.47 miles) and 5,577 feet (1.05 miles) in diameter.

If you still need to calm your mind, NASA said that potentially dangerous asteroids are “ defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to make threatening close approaches to Earth. ”

NASA continued: “In particular, all asteroids with a minimum orbital diameter (MOID) of 0.05 au or less are considered PHAs.

“Occasionally, the orbits of asteroids are affected by the gravitational pull of planets, causing their orbits to change.

“Scientists believe that stray asteroids or fragments from past collisions in the past hit Earth and played an important role in the evolution of our planet.”

According to reports, the asteroid will be within about 1.2 million miles of Earth at 11.03 a.m. ET (that’s 4.03 a.m. GMT).