The largest asteroid to fly over Earth in 2021 “potentially dangerous”

Mark your calendars, guys, because the biggest known asteroid of 2021 will pass through Earth on March 21 and is said to be “potentially dangerous.”

Space rock, known as FO32 in 2001, is one of many objects close to Earth (NEO) that revolve around the Sun, just as our planet does.

NEOs are typically less than 30 million miles away; just to put it in context, the distance around the Earth to the equator is only less than 25,000 miles, so the NEOs are long very far.

According to NASA, there are approximately 25,000 NEOs identified 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 the Earth’s own path around the sun at 4.6 million miles, while also measuring more than 460 feet in diameter.

The 2001 FO32 appears to meet both criteria to make it “potentially dangerous,” but apparently only so that it can be traced “for decades” to “study how its orbits could evolve,” according to the CNEOS director. Paul Chodas.

NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory in California estimates it measures between 2,526 feet (0.47 miles) and 5,577 feet (1.05 miles) in diameter.

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

NASA continued: “Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of 0.05 au or less are considered PHA.

“From time to time, the orbital paths of asteroids are influenced by the gravitational pull of the planets, which cause their paths to be altered.

“Scientists believe that lost asteroids or fragments of previous collisions have fallen against Earth in the past, playing an important role in the evolution of our planet.”

The asteroid is reported to be about 1.2 million kilometers from Earth at 11.03am ET (which is at 4.03pm GMT).