Largest asteroid flight of 2021, the size of the Golden Gate Bridge, to make “a very close encounter” with Earth on March 21

An asteroid similar in size to the Golden Gate Bridge will pass our planet this weekend, the largest and fastest asteroid to have passed through Earth this year.

But don’t worry, it won’t get too close.

The asteroid, officially known to NASA as 231937 (2001 FO32), is smaller than the last notable to get closer to Earth, but it will be three times closer, NASA said in a statement.

The 2001 FO32 is about 1,300 to 2,230 feet wide, according to observations made by the NEOWISE mission team, placing it at the smallest end of the ladder. It has an orbital period of 810 days.

It will be here to mark the first full day of spring.

The 2001 FO32 is rapidly approaching our planet, which will reach 1.25 million kilometers from Earth at 11:02 am ET on Sunday, March 21, just one day after the spring equinox. It’s close enough for NASA to classify it as “potentially dangerous“in its database of asteroids near Earth, a designation given when an asteroid reaches about 4.65 million kilometers from Earth and has a diameter greater than 500 feet.

The asteroid will go at almost 77,000 miles per hour, or 21 miles per second, with the highest interests of scientists as one of the fastest space rocks known to exceed Earth. It is “unusually fast” due to its very sloping and elongated orbit around the sun, which brings it closer to the sun than Mercury and twice as much from the sun as Mars.

“This is the closest projected approach in 2021 for any moderately large asteroid, where ‘moderately large’ means at least several hundred meters,” Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Object Studies at CBS News, told CBS News. the Near Earth.

However, it poses no risk of impact and scientists know its path very accurately, as they have studied it for about two decades.

“As the 2001 FO32 makes its journey with the inner solar system, the asteroid increases in speed like a skateboard that rolls through half a pipe and then decreases in speed after being launched into deep space and turning toward to the Sun, “NASA said.

The next meeting offers astronomers a unique opportunity to better understand the asteroid, including its size, reflectivity, and composition. Some of the studies will make use of NASA’s Infrared Telescope (IRTF) facility at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

“We’re trying to do geology with a telescope,” said Vishnu Reddy, an associate professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. “We will use IRTF to get the infrared spectrum to see its chemical composition. Once we know, we can make comparisons with meteorites on Earth to find out what minerals it contains in the 2001 FO32.”

In addition, researchers can use radar observations from NASA’s deep space network, which has ground stations in California, Spain, and Australia, to study orbit, dimensions, rotational speed, surface features, and the possible satellites of the asteroid.

“Observations dating back 20 years revealed that about 15% of asteroids close to Earth comparable in size to the 2001 FO32 have a small moon,” said Lance Benner, JPL’s chief scientist. “Little is currently known about this object, so the very close encounter offers an exceptional opportunity to learn a lot about this asteroid.”

At the brightest moment, the space rock will still be “too weak” to be seen with the naked eye, Chodas said. But space enthusiasts can observe it with a telescope.

“A fascinating aspect of asteroids is that observers using telescopes in the back garden can detect them as seemingly slow-moving‘ stars ’,” EarthSky said. “Garden telescope users typically take at least 5 to 10 minutes to detect the movement of a space rock in front of its stellar field. But the 2001 asteroid FO32 will pass through Earth at such a fast rate. that, when closer, observers using 8-inch or larger telescopes could detect their motion (drifting in front of the stars) in real time. “

Observers in the lower northern latitudes and the southern hemisphere will have the best chance of observing it at its brightest, Chodas said. Star charts will help you locate it.

New Mexico telescopes that are part of the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program detected the asteroid in March 2001. The MIT Lincoln Laboratory program, funded by the United States Air Force and NASA, has been monitoring it ever since. .

After its visit on March 21, FO32 will continue its “solitary journey”, without returning to Earth until 2052. In that year, it will reach 1.75 million kilometers from Earth, or about seven lunar distances.

The biggest known threat today is an asteroid called (410777) 2009 FD, which has less than a 0.2% chance of hitting Earth in 2185, according to NASA’s PDCO.