Discovered on March 13, an asteroid greets Earth safely DIRECT

Discovered on March 13 and officially announced the next day, the small asteroid

greets Earth on March 17 from a close but safe distance.

In fact, it will pass to

, a distance equal to

of that which separates our planet from the Moon and which does not involve any risk for the Earth, observes astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, scientific director of the Virtual Telescope and organizer of the observation that we broadcast live on the ANSA Science channel at 1.00 on 17 March.

The asteroid 2023 EY has an

and, according to calculations by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Jpl), will reach its minimum distance from the Earth at 12.35 on March 17, 2023. This

was discovered by the campaign observation station, the early warning program organized by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA, based on four telescopes (two of which are located in Hawaii, one in Chile and one in South Africa).