According to Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, its passage will be harmless, but it is still considered among the space objects to be monitored. Three times larger than the American Statue of Liberty, it has been named 2021 NY1.
On September 22, the autumnal equinox brings to Earth 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night, but, in addition to the change of season, this day also marks another event: an asteroid, three times the size of the American Statue of Liberty, will overtake our planet. The space rock has been named 2021 NY1 and, according to Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, its passage will be completely harmless. However, the asteroid remains among the Near Earth Objects (NEOs), which are objects in space that are very close to Earth and need to be monitored. NY1 will pass about 193 million kilometers from the Sun.
How close the huge asteroid will get to Earth and what to know about its passage
It has been estimated that 2021 NY1 will pass relatively close to our planet at a distance of about 1,560,000 kilometers, or just under four times the space separating Earth from the Moon. Although the huge asteroid is not a threat to the world and the lives of human beings, it belongs to the so-called NEOs that NASA monitors in the remote possibility that their orbits may change in the future, bringing them closer to a possible collision with our planet. In addition, studying the characteristics of NEOs could reveal new information about the early days of the solar system, as most asteroids are rocky fragments originating from that period.
The asteroid 2021 NY1 is a rock measuring between 130 and 300 meters in diameter, or it has been speculated by Nasa’s NEO database may be between three and six times the size of the Statue of Liberty. The object is traveling through space at about 21,000 mph (33,800 km/h) – or about 27 times the speed of sound. In fact, this fall asteroid is not the closest it has ever crossed our world. The “record” goes to asteroid 2020 QG, which hurtled a mere 2,950 km over the Indian Ocean on August 16, 2020.
Meanwhile, the U.S. space agency, to prevent asteroid impacts with Earth, has been working for years to design defense systems. The first test to hijack space rocks will be via the Dart probe, which is expected to reach the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022.
Stefania Bernardini