The close passage of an asteroid over a kilometer in diameter is expected in the night between 18 and 19 January, which will whiz at almost 20 kilometers per second at a safe distance of almost 2 million kilometers, i.e. 5 times that between the Earth and the Moon. . Identified as (7482) 1994 PC1, the asteroid will be visible in the sky even with the help of a small telescope. It is also possible to observe the passage on the ANSA Scienza e Tecnica channel, thanks to the live broadcast organized by the Virtual Telescope at 9.00 pm on January 18th, with the comment of the astrophysicist Gianluca Masi.
Discovered in 1994 by the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, the asteroid has been traced in great detail ever since and its trajectory around the Sun is very well known.
It is a rocky asteroid with a diameter of over a thousand meters, two and a half times the Empire State building, and for dimensions and minimum distances it can reach from Earth it is included in the list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, particularly dangerous asteroids and which are therefore monitored constantly and with particular attention.
Reconstruction of the trajectory of the 1994 PC1 asteroid (source: Phoenix7777 from Wikipedia)
The point of maximum approach with the planet is fixed at 22:51 Italian time but will be visible with small telescopes starting from sunset.
For (7482) 1994 PC1 it is not the first close passage to our planet, the calculations on its orbit indicate in fact a transit occurred on January 17, 1933 at just 1 million kilometers.