On Thursday, July 7, a small asteroid flew at a distance of 90 thousand km from Earth. Scientists learned about it only on July 4 and immediately determined that it did not pose a threat to the Earth.
Asteroid flew past the Earth
The passage of a small asteroid near the Earth remained almost unnoticed by various alarmists. The object, which received the identifier 2022 NF, flew only 90 thousand km from the Earth. This is only 23 percent of the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The flyby was so close that in the evening of that day the asteroid could be observed even with a small telescope. For example, the Virtual Telescope Project hosted the broadcast of the 2022 NF video from its instrument located in Rome.
The largest size of the telescope is estimated from 5.5 to 12.5 meters. This means that it is much smaller than the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk a few years ago, although theoretically it could make a lot of noise in a collision.
The asteroid was seen a few days before the rendezvous
The most interesting thing is that even a week before the flight, no one knew about the asteroid. The stone was first seen on July 4 using the Hawaiian Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, better known as Pan-STARRS.
However, almost immediately the asteroid was identified as not dangerous by NASA standards. In order to be recognized as a threat, a stone approaching us closer than 4.7 million km needs to have a diameter of at least 140 m.
So, it is not surprising that the asteroid flew almost unnoticed by the world media. Everyone just didn’t understand that you need to be scared. In recent years, the number of close passes of asteroids recorded by scientists has increased. But this does not mean that the threat of a collision with them has grown. It’s just that the possibilities for tracking them have become wider.
According to www. sciencealert.com
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