Asteroid 2005 YY128 is hurtling towards and just past Earth at a speed of around 89,000 kilometers per hour.
Munich – There are many near-Earth asteroids.
Some of them literally scrape the earth, others hit the earth and burn up in the earth's atmosphere - like the Chelyabinsk asteroid ten years ago or a small asteroid over the English Channel a few days ago.
The asteroids that come very close to Earth are usually rather small.
But now a pretty big chunk is getting in your way.
The size of asteroid 2005 YY128 is estimated by NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) to be between 580 meters and 1.3 kilometers in size.
At 1:46 a.m. on February 16, 2023, it sped past Earth at a speed of almost 89,000 kilometers per hour and at a distance of just 4.5 million kilometers.
Large asteroid comes closer to Earth than it has in 400 years
That's roughly 12 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, so there's no reason to get nervous.
Asteroid 2005 YY128 will not hit Earth during this flyby.
Nevertheless, it is the asteroid's closest approach to Earth in more than 400 years.
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Asteroid 2005 YY1128 is rushing past Earth at great speed.
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© imago/Ken Pilon
The asteroid comes so close to Earth that it can be observed with telescopes.
As Earthsky.org reports, astronomers also aligned the Goldstone telescope in California to the asteroid to get radar images of the colossus.
Surname: | 2005 YY128 |
|---|---|
Type: | Apollo asteroid |
Discovery: | December 30, 2005 |
Explorers: | Astronomers at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona |
Size: | 580 meters to 1.3 kilometers |
speed | almost 89,000 km/h relative to the earth |
Closest approach to Earth | 4.5 million kilometers on February 16, 2023 at 01:46 |
2005 YY128 is considered a "potentially dangerous asteroid"
2005 YY128 is classified by experts as a "potentially dangerous asteroid".
However, this does not mean that the celestial body poses an acute threat to Earth.
The following asteroids are classified as "potentially dangerous":
Exceeding a brightness of magnitude 22 (experts can infer the size from the brightness)
Orbit will eventually bring the asteroid closer than 7.4 million kilometers to Earth
Researchers have long been working on ways to fend off a dangerous asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
Last fall, NASA steered the Dart spacecraft toward a small asteroid in order to "bump" it out of orbit.
This test succeeded.
In the future, the ESA space probe "Hera" will fly to the site of the collision and collect further data that will be incorporated into future models for asteroid defense.
However, no asteroid has yet been discovered that has a high risk of hitting Earth.
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List of rubrics: © imago/Ken Pilon