2020 was essentially a disaster movie and 2021 doesn’t look much better. As if it weren’t dystopian enough, there’s now a giant asteroid that will pass unpleasantly up close, uncomfortable soon.
The 2001 asteroid FO32 will be launched next to Earth on March 21 – but wait. There is still no reason to start preparing for the trial day, even if it is large enough and will be close enough to be classified as a potentially dangerous asteroid (PHA) by NASA. 2001 FO32 sounds like a nightmare fuel at first. The space rock, whose orbit intersects that of Earth, will be both the largest and fastest asteroid to pass over our home lawn in 2021. This is about as long as the length of the Golden Gate Bridge and will perform a flyby at almost 77,000 mph. That means 21 miles per second.
Wait a moment before storing toothpaste and dish soap in the basement. NASA is positive 2001 FO32 will not hit us despite the scary classification it gave the asteroid. I know something there, because they have been monitoring the object since 2001 (it can take years and even decades to confirm where something is and where it is going into outer space). Qualifications for a potentially dangerous asteroid make the 2001 FO32 look much more annoying than it actually is. But first, before anything can be officially seen as dangerous, it must qualify as a Near Earth Object (NEO).
Asteroids and comets often end up as NEOs when gravity from other planets pushes them close to Earth. Most will never be another row of dinosaurs waiting to happen. At some point in its orbit, an object must enter the danger zone less than 1.3 times the distance from Earth to the Sun in order to be seen as a NEO. The Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun, so anything would have to be nearly 121 million miles from Earth at any point in its orbit to go from being just another object there to NEO status.
Asteroids and other NEOs must be about 500 feet long and slip less than 4.6 million miles from Earth as they orbit to be potentially dangerous asteroids or, if the threat in question is a threat. comet, potentially dangerous objects. We have something that the dinosaurs did not do before the asteroid Chixculub crashed into Earth. NASA and other space agencies are developing asteroid deflection techniques. Finding out exactly how big a dangerous NEO is, along with its shape, mass, structure and chemical composition, helps scientists discover the best way to deflect it.
NASA’s DART mission, which will be launched in July, will test the harmless asteroid Didymus, 11 million miles away. There will be a spaceship that crashes into Didymus and moves it out of the way, changing the orbit of its moon “Didymoon” and another to imagine the whole thing as it goes on.
2001 The FO32 orbit has been studied long enough for NASA to be sure that it will not end up punching our planet. It is in an extremely elliptical orbit around the Sun and passes our star every 810 days, so a year on this asteroid is a little over twice as long as it is here. Its size was determined by how bright it appears, which depends on how it reflects light. It can be more than 97% of asteroids, but remember that many asteroids and meteorites are small enough to burn or at least release into the atmosphere if they come to earth.
Even at a size that would make the Golden Gate Bridge tremble, it’s still nothing compared to the really big asteroids hiding in the dark. We won’t even have to worry about any of them, at least for the next hundred years.