The planet Earth (Saturday) is witnessing the transit of a large asteroid similar in size to the “Eiffel Tower”, called Nereus, with a length of 330 meters and classified by the US Space and Aviation Agency “NASA” as one of the dangerous objects that potentially pose a threat to the Earth.
The Astronomical Society in Jeddah indicated on its official page on Facebook that the asteroid Nereus will pass through the Earth’s orbit at a speed of 23,700 kilometers per hour and will remain at a safe distance, as it will be about 3.86 million km away, or about 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and with that The distance, despite its distance, is that the asteroid is within the NASA classification of near-Earth objects, which it identified as being within a range of 193 million km from Earth, and any fast-moving object within a distance of 7.5 million km.
The asteroid Nereus was discovered in 1982, and it revolves around the sun every 1.82 years, and approaches the Earth approximately every 10 years, and is expected to approach the Earth again on March 2, 2031 and November 2050, and it is expected to make an interesting approach on February 14, 2060 when It will pass at a distance of 1.2 million kilometers from Earth.
The Nereus asteroid will approach Earth at exactly 13:51 UTC, i.e. about 4 p.m. Saturday, and it will not hit the Earth, and according to some reports, the value of the asteroid full of precious wealth is estimated at about $ 5 billion, and it completes an orbit around the sun every 661 days, and the nearest A distance to Earth will be in the year 2060, as it will be only three lunar distances, and can be seen with the naked eye.
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