Bbabo NET

Society News

Russia - An asteroid the size of four Eiffel Towers is approaching Earth

Russia (bbabo.net), - A large asteroid - four times the size of the Eiffel Tower - is approaching Earth and will fly past it on March 4. The diameter of the cosmic body is about 1.3 km, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the Roscosmos Telegram channel. Experts even showed an animation of the asteroid flyby. It was made at the M. V. Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences thanks to a telescope in Altai.

As reported, the closest approach of a celestial body with our planet, however, will be at a distance of 4.8 million kilometers, which excludes the possibility of a collision. This distance exceeds ten distances between the Earth and the Moon.

Recall: earlier, scientists from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered a new asteroid from the Apollo group. Its diameter is supposedly about 24 meters and weight is about 18 thousand tons. The period of revolution around the Sun is 410 days. Based on preliminary calculations, a dangerous approach to the Earth is predicted on April 5, 2095. At the moment, the probability of a collision with the Earth is 0.02%. The asteroid has been named 2021 UL17.

The parameters of the orbital motion of the "noisy" asteroid Apophis have also been significantly refined: these are 339 positional measurements in 28 files (each file contains a set of measurements for one night). The results of the large-scale IAWN campaign to observe Apophis, conducted in 2020-2021, have significantly refined the parameters of its orbital movement. That increased the reliability of long-term forecasts of its approach to the Earth. New knowledge made it possible to confidently speak about the absence of a risk of collision at a probability level above 10 to the minus 6th power.

Russia - An asteroid the size of four Eiffel Towers is approaching Earth