*The largest asteroid to pass by Earth this year will approach within some1.25 million miles (two million kilometers) of our planet on March 21, NASAsaid Thursday.*
The US space agency said it will allow astronomers to get a rare close lookat an asteroid.
The asteroid, 2001 FO32, is estimated to be about 3,000 feet in diameterand was discovered 20 years ago, NASA said.
“We know the orbital path of 2001 FO32 around the Sun very accurately,”said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies.“There is no chance the asteroid will get any closer to Earth than 1.25million miles.”
That is roughly 5.25 times the distance of the Earth from the Moon butstill close enough for 2001 FO32 to be classified as a “potentiallyhazardous asteroid.”
NASA said 2001 FO32 will pass by at about 77,000 miles per hour faster thanthe speed at which most asteroids encounter Earth.
“Currently, little is known about this object, so the very close encounterprovides an outstanding opportunity to learn a great deal about thisasteroid,” said Lance Benner, principal scientist at NASA’s Jet PropulsionLaboratory.
NASA said astronomers hope to get a better understanding of the asteroid’ssize and a rough idea of its composition by studying light reflecting offits surface.
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“When sunlight hits an asteroid’s surface, minerals in the rock absorb somewavelengths while reflecting others,” NASA said. “By studying the spectrumof light reflecting off the surface, astronomers can measure the chemical‘fingerprints’ of the minerals on the surface of the asteroid.”
Amateur astronomers in some parts of the globe should be able to conducttheir own observations.
“The asteroid will be brightest while it moves through southern skies,Chodas said.
“Amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere and at low northernlatitudes should be able to see this asteroid using moderate sizetelescopes with apertures of at least eight inches in the nights leading upto closest approach, but they will probably need star charts to find it.”
NASA said more than 95 percent of near-Earth asteroids the size of 2001FO32 or larger have been catalogued and none of them has any chance ofimpacting our planet over the next century. -APP/AFP
