A reminder of our planet's vulnerability to threats from space: An asteroid the size of a truck is expected to pass very close to Earth's orbit today (Thursday), in one of the closest encounters between our planet and a space rock in some time.
The American space agency NASA claims that this is a "near miss" but without any chance of the space rock hitting the Earth. The agency told the media in the United States that even if the asteroid had entered the Earth's atmosphere, it would probably have burned up for the most part and only small parts A lot of it would hit the surface.
NASA's risk assessment system, known as a "scout" or "watcher," ruled out the possibility of an impact shortly after the asteroid, which will not be named, was spotted. Alert system developer David Fernuccia said: "Despite very few sightings of the asteroid , the system was able to determine that the rock will pass in an unusually close orbit to the Earth, in fact, this is one of the largest approaches of an asteroid to the Earth that has ever been recorded."
The space rock, which was only discovered on Saturday, is eight and a half meters long and three meters wide, like a large truck.
It was first discovered by an amateur astronomer in the Crimea peninsula in Ukraine.
In the days that followed, the asteroid was observed several more times, which allowed NASA to calculate its orbit. The orbit is significantly affected by the Earth's gravitational field.
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