2020 was basically a film about disasters and 2021 doesn’t look much better. As if that wasn’t dystopian enough, there’s now a ginormous asteroid that will pass uncomfortably close, awkward soon.
The 2001 asteroid FO32 will be zooming in front of Earth on March 21, but wait. There is still no reason to start preparing for Judgment Day, although it is large enough and will be close enough to be classified by NASA as a potentially dangerous asteroid (PHA). The 2001 FO32 initially looks like a nightmare fuel. The space rock, whose orbit intersects that of Earth, will be the largest and fastest asteroid to pass our turf in 2021. This thing is as big as the length of the Golden Gate Bridge and will fly over at almost 77,000 mph. They are 21 kilometers per second.
Wait a moment before storing toothpaste and dish soap in the basement. NASA is positive In 2001 FO32 will not impact us despite the terrifying classification it gave to the asteroid. They know something there, because they have been controlling the object since 2001 (it can take years and even decades to confirm where something is and where it is going into outer space). Qualifications for a potentially dangerous asteroid make the 2001 FO32 sound far more disturbing than it really is. But first, before something is officially seen as dangerous, it must qualify as the Near Earth (NEO) object.
Asteroids and comets often end up being NEO when the gravity of other planets pushes them close to Earth. Most will never be another dinosaur wipeout waiting for it to happen. At some point in its orbit, an object must enter the danger zone less than 1.3 times the distance from Earth to the Sun in order to be seen as a NEO. The Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun, so whatever it is must be almost 121 million kilometers from Earth at any time in its orbit to go from being one more object to the NEO state. .
Asteroids and other NEOs must be about 500 feet long and must have crept less than 4.6 million kilometers from Earth as they orbit to be potentially dangerous asteroids or, if the threat in question is a comet, potentially dangerous objects. We have something that dinosaurs didn’t do before the asteroid Chixculub crashed into Earth. NASA and other space agencies are developing asteroid deflection techniques. Finding out exactly how huge a dangerous NEO is, along with its shape, mass, structure, and chemical composition, helps scientists figure out the best way to deflect it.
NASA’s DART mission, which will be launched this July, will experiment with a harmless asteroid Didymus that is 11 million kilometers away. There will be a spaceship that sinks against Didymus and moves it out of the way, displacing the orbit of its “Didymoon” moon, and another to imagine it all as it progresses.
The orbit of the 2001 FO32 has been studied long enough for NASA to be sure that it will not end up punching our planet. It is in a very elliptical orbit around the Sun and passes our star every 810 days, so a year on this asteroid is a little more than double what it is here. Its size was determined by the brightness that appears, which depends on how it reflects light. It may exceed 97% of asteroids, but remember that many asteroids and meteorites are small enough to burn or at least break into the atmosphere if they reach Earth.
Even at a size that would make the Golden Gate Bridge tremble, it’s still nothing compared to the really big asteroids hiding in the dark. We won’t even have to worry about any of these for at least the next hundred years.