An asteroid called 138971 (2001 CB21) will approach Earth in March, writes Newsweek, citing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The diameter of a large cosmic body, according to astronomers, is approximately 1.3 kilometers or 4265 feet. It is four times taller than the Eiffel Tower. The asteroid is expected to pass close to the planet around 11:00 Moscow time on March 4. It moves at a speed of more than 43 thousand kilometers per hour, the scientists warned.
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NASA has identified it as “potentially hazardous”. At the same time, scientists are confident that in the foreseeable future it will not collide with the Earth. “The asteroid will be more than three million miles away at its closest point, which is more than ten times farther from us than the Moon,” the experts stressed.
2001 CB21 was first discovered by the Virtual Telescope Project astronomer in Italy, Gianluca Masi. He took a picture of it with a ground-based telescope when the asteroid was more than 34.6 million kilometers from Earth.
Earlier, an international team of astronomers confirmed the existence of the second known Trojan asteroid 2020 XL5 near Earth.
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