An asteroid of this size can cause large-scale damage when it collides with Earth, but the probability of it hitting Earth is very weak.
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“NASA” says that an asteroid is approaching Earth, and it is considered the largest asteroid that approached the planet in 2022.
According to data from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the length of asteroid 1989 JA is estimated at 1.7 kilometers.
An asteroid of this size can cause widespread destruction upon its collision with the Earth, but the probability of it colliding with the Earth is very weak, because on Friday it will approach our planet at a distance of 4 million km, and this is equivalent to 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The asteroid’s flight speed is about 48,000 kilometers per hour, says Frank Marches, chief planetary scientist at the SETI Institute. This speed is 17 times faster than the speed of a bullet in the air. That is, it can orbit the Earth in 45 minutes.
Astronomer Eleanor Helen of Palomar Observatory in Southern California discovered the asteroid in 1989.
Therefore, scientists know it well, and its orbit has been accurately determined by specialists, and in light of this it can “pose a danger to Earth” because it is among the asteroids of the Apollo group, whose orbits can intersect with the Earth’s orbit.
Those interested in watching the asteroid flyby can follow the live broadcast from Chile on Friday, April 27, 2022 at 02:00 Moscow time, and from Argentina on the same day at 16:00 Moscow time on the Virtual Telescope Project website.