At 4:26 p.m. this Friday, an asteroid 1.8 km in diameter will, on the scale of the universe, graze the Earth.
According to the specialized site space.com, 7335, that's its name, will pass 4 million km from our blue planet, or about ten times the distance that separates the Earth from the Moon.
If the risks of collision are a priori excluded - unless its trajectory were to deviate from it at the last moment - NASA has still classified it as potentially dangerous.
It must be said that this huge asteroid is “as big as four Empire State Buildings”.
“There is no threat at all.
Statistically, 90% of objects larger than one kilometer, which is also the disaster threshold if they fell to Earth, are known.
To date, the scientific community has identified them all.
We are not threatened by any of them for at least a century, ”explains Patrick Michel, asteroid specialist at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Ouest-France.
A speed of 76,000 km/h
And 7335 is well known to the scientific community.
It was discovered in 1989 by American astronomer Eleanor Helin, then working at the US Palomar Observatory in California.
It has the particularity of being an "Apollo", that is to say an asteroid whose orbit is around the Sun, regularly crossing that of the Earth.
It moves at a speed of 76,000 km/h.
NASA adds that it is the most imposing stellar object that will pass near Earth this year among the 29,000 objects it monitors.
Astronomers can try to spot it by pointing their glasses at least 20 cm towards the constellation Hydra.
If you don't have the necessary equipment, the Virtual Telescope Project website will broadcast live its observations from Chile and Australia.
Its next passage near our planet is scheduled for June 23, 2055.
