PASSER BYS (ASTEROIDS) AGAIN? ANY THREAT TO EARTH?
An airplane-sized asteroid propelling toward the Earth at a speed of 67656 kmph, might say hi on April 6, 2023.
News about asteroids might sound common and most tend to ignore the news as it is often considered a false alarm. But every news alarm about an asteroid is important.
Asteroids heading towards our planet or nearby are always on the news because space is unpredictable and any asteroid passing by might collide with us anytime if influenced by earth’s gravity, which would make serious damage to the earth, and that’s why a heads-up about its visit is always given.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has made some recent observations where it was discovered that earth is going to witness five passers-bys in the coming days.
Out of the five asteroids that were observed, two might make their closest visit to the earth today.
All these observations are made by NASA’s Asteroid Watch dashboard, it not only observes the asteroids, it actually tracks the path of asteroids and comments that appear to be passing by the earth, calculates the speed of the asteroid, the closest distance it’d approach earth, the date it’d reach that distance, the size of the asteroid (its diameter), the size of it compared to earth.
The asteroids that were noted to have passed by earth on April 3rd, 2023 are:
- Asteroid (NEO) 2023 FU6 – 45foot and passed by earth from a distance of 1,870,000km.
- Asteroid 2023 FS11 – this asteroid made it to the news due to its very close approach, relatively far when compared to the FU6 but this asteroid is bigger in size i.e., 82 feet. This airplane-sized asteroid passed by the earth on 3rd April 2023 at a distance of 6,610,000km.
The rest 3 asteroids that are observed are:
- Asteroid 2023 FA7 – this 92-foot asteroid is supposed to pass earth today at the closest point of 2,250,000km.
- Asteroid 2023 FQ7 – making its closest approach on April 5, 2023, this asteroid of size 65 feet is going to come as close as 5,750,000km to the earth.
- Asteroid 2023 FZ3 – last but not least is a 150-foot giant propelling towards the earth at a speed of 67656 kmph. NASA has raised a high alert on this one because this giant is going to pass by the earth from just 4,190,000km, any change in its trajectory due to the earth’s gravitational pull will have it aiming at the earth for a collision. This encounter of us with the giant will be on April 6, 2023.
All the mentioned and observed asteroids to date aren’t much of a threat to the earth. Asteroids are the remains from around the formation of our solar system and are found orbiting the sun, most of the asteroids are found between Mars and Jupiter forming a belt and orbiting the sun.
The asteroids that get affected by Jupiter’s gravity are pulled out of their orbit and that’s when we tend to see their interaction with Earth and other planets.
Asteroids are no threat and are beautiful to watch as long as they don’t come in for a collision. So stay right there with your telescopes to watch the asteroid 2023 FZ3 on April 6, 2023, if we are lucky enough it’ll make its visit at night and we’ll witness it along with the month’s first full moon.