The rocky bodies in question, of good size, have been classified as potentially dangerous by NASA and are being monitored very closely thanks to an increasingly increased detection system.
Seven asteroids, including three classified as potentially dangerous by NASA, passed Earth between February 27 and March 5. This is what our colleagues from Parisian reveal.
The first two of them, the size of a basketball court, passed Monday, February 27 at 4.8 and 3.6 million kilometers from our planet. The biggest of the series increased to 4.5 million kilometers overnight from Friday to Saturday.
The fear of a deviated trajectory
Distances that may seem very far away, but if one of these asteroids sees its trajectory deviated in a collision with another body, it can be sent directly towards us. That’s why engineers from NASA and the European Space Agency are keeping a close eye on these fireballs, which can also be attracted to Earth if they pass too close. An increased detection system has been put in place.
Experts estimate that more than 10,000 asteroids pass close to Earth each year, with the majority disintegrating in the atmosphere to form shooting stars.
Impacts capable of causing significant damage are produced by celestial objects with a diameter greater than 10 m. The largest can exceed 10 km like the one supposed to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.