Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 19-04-2017
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says an asteroid more than a 400 metres wide will pass close to Earth today zooming by at a distance of just over a 1.8 million km, but with no chance of impact.
Reuter’s reports smaller asteroids routinely make closer passes to Earth, but 2014 J025, discovered in May 2014, will be the largest asteroid to come this near to the planet since 2004, flying by at only about 4.6 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon, 1.8 million km.
Davide Farnocchia, a mathematician at Nasa’s Near-Earth Object programme says having several years of data on the asteroid’s trajectory gives scientists the ability to predict its path very confidently.
“We know the time that the object is going to be closest within seconds, and the distance is known within hundreds of kilometres.”
The asteroid, estimated to be between one-quarter and three-quarters of a 600-1,400 metres wide and twice as reflective as the Moon, won’t be visible to the naked eye, but sky watchers should be able to view it with home telescopes for one or two nights starting on Wednesday.
The approach of J025 will be the asteroids closest for at least the next 500 years.
In 2004, the five-kilometre wide asteroid Toutatis passed about four lunar distances, or just under a 1.6 million km from Earth.
– Reuters
Watch Huge Asteroid 2014 JO25 to Pass by Earth – Video: Above Science
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