Description
A house-sized asteroid safely passed Earth on Friday morning at about 62% of the average lunar distance, according to astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project. Near-Earth asteroid 2023 EY, discovered by the Asteroid Impact Last Alert System on Earth (ATLAS) on March 13, came within 2,39,800 kilometers of the Earth's surface. (READ ALSO: Impressive video: an asteroid lights up the night sky over the English Channel) ATLAS is the first telescope capable of surveying the entire sky once every 24 hours, helping astronomers more accurately classify and identify near-Earth objects such as asteroids.
NASA's Asteroid Watch dashboard shows asteroid and comet approaches to Earth that will be quite close.
The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 3,85,000 km, and NASA tracks asteroids that approach Earth at 19.5 times the distance of the Moon. According to the US space agency, an object of more than approximately 150 meters that can approach Earth at this distance is classified as a potentially dangerous object.
Although asteroids often come dangerously close to Earth, more than 65 million years have passed since a disastrous collision with our planet, which would have led to the extinction of many species, including the dinosaurs.
However, NASA has already conducted the world's first planetary defense test (DART) against the possibility of an asteroid collision with Earth. However, NASA admits that the plan is purely preventative, since no asteroid has a significant chance of hitting Earth in the next 100 years.
