The Purple Mountain Observatory of the Academy of Sciences announced ChineseToday, Tuesday, a newly discovered asteroid the size of half a football field It will pass close to the ground next month.
The observatory indicated that the asteroid will pass near Earth on February 4, indicating that its passage does not pose a threat to the planet.
“The asteroid is expected to come close to the Earth’s surface at a distance of 2.55 million km,” said Zhao Haibin, chief scientist of the observatory’s Near-Earth Object Telescope Program. “Given this distance, the asteroid will not pose a threat to Earth.”
The asteroid was first spotted by the observatory on January 1, and it was named “AA 2022”, which means that it is the first asteroid close to Earth to be detected. discover it This year, and since then, he has been closely watched by monitoring stations in the United States and Chile as well.
The newly discovered asteroid, estimated to be 43 meters wide, belongs to the Apollo group, and the orbits of these asteroids are larger than the Earth’s orbit around the sun and their paths intersect with the Earth’s orbit.
(Qena)
