The largest asteroid of the year, as regards the close passages with the Earth, is preparing to touch it on the day of May 27: despite being classified as potentially dangerous due to its large size, about 1.8 kilometers in diameter, it is not poses a threat, as it will pass at a safe distance of 4 million kilometers, about 10 times the average distance between our planet and the Moon.
For the occasion, the Virtual Telescope Project, in collaboration with Telescope Live, is organizing an event that we broadcast live: starting at 01.00 Italian on May 27, with a first connection from Chile, and starting at 15.00, when the asteroid named 7335 (1989 JA) will be visible from Australia.
7335 (1989 JA) is traveling at a speed of around 76,000 kilometers per hour, thus 20 times faster than a bullet.
The asteroid belongs to the class of objects called Apollo, that is, that group of about 15 thousand asteroids that periodically cross the Earth's orbit: 7335 (1989 JA), in fact, will return to pass close to the Earth in 2055, but on that occasion at a distance even greater than the current one.
An example of the Apollo asteroid is the one that exploded in 2013 over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia.
The celestial body is also part of over 29 thousand near-Earth objects (Neo): those asteroids whose route will take them within 48 million kilometers from our planet, and which for this reason are constantly monitored by NASA.
In this regard, the American space agency launched a mission in November 2021 that aims to verify whether the impact of a vehicle can successfully deflect an asteroid colliding with the Earth: the Dart probe will collide head-on with Dimorphos ( 160 meters in diameter) in the autumn of this year, trying to slightly change its course.
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