NASA: Large Asteroid To Pass By Earth On March 21

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• Mar 12, 2021 | admin

WASHINGTON: The largest asteroid of this year will pass by Earth on the 21^st of March.



The asteroid named 2001 FO32 was first discovered twenty years ago and will be passing by Earth within a safe distance of 1.25 million miles which is roughly 5.25 times the distance of Earth from the Moon but still considered as ‘potentially hazardous asteroid’ in astronomical terms.

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Asteroid 2001 FO32 is estimated to be about 3,000 feet in diameter and will pass by our planet at about 77,000 miles per hour faster than the speed at which most other asteroids encounter Earth.



“We know the orbital path of 2001 FO32 around the Sun very accurately”, stated Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS)."There is no chance the asteroid will get any closer to Earth than 1.25 million miles.”



However, the close distance with which the asteroid will pass by will provide astronomers with a chance to get a better understanding of the asteroid about which very little is known.

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Lance Benner, principle scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory stated, “Currently little is known about this object, so the very close encounter provides an outstanding opportunity to learn a great deal about this asteroid.”



NASA further stated that more than 95 percent of near-Earth asteroids the size of 2001 FO32 or larger have been cataloged and none of them has any chance of impacting Earth over the next century.