Montevideo. In 1994, Scottish astronomer Robert H. McNaught discovered asteroid 7,482 at the Siding Spring observatory in Australia. It was classified by NASA as “close to Earth” and “potentially dangerous”.
“All asteroids with a minimum distance of 0.05 astronomical units (approximately 7,480,000 kilometers) are considered potentially dangerous,” NASA noted.
The objects within this classification are those that pass “closest” to Earth, Andrea Sánchez, a doctor in astronomy from the University of the Republic, in Uruguay, explained to AFP.
According to information from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, today body 7,482 is at the closest distance it has ever been from the planet (0.013 astronomical units), which is equivalent to 1.9 million kilometres.
This distance is “super safe”, since it will pass “five times farther than the Moon is from Earth”, so “there is no danger of impact”, assured Sánchez.
The next time that asteroid is at a similar distance (0.015 astronomical units), it will be in 2105, NASA data indicates.
According to the space agency, the diameter of this rocky object is 1,520 kilometers.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA’s California Institute of Technology explained that the diameter of asteroid 7,482 is “just over a kilometer,” Sánchez told AFP.
For comparison, he added: “The most famous asteroid was the one that killed off the dinosaurs and that object was 10 kilometers” in diameter.
In any case, there are asteroids with a diameter of a thousand kilometers, such as Ceres, which “is an exception,” the scientist commented, since it is not only an asteroid, but it was also classified as a dwarf planet due to its size.
#NASA #rules #nearEarth #asteroid #dangerous