Later this month, an enormous asteroid will fly safely past the Earth—and you can watch the event live online from the comfort of your own home.
The Asteroid Watch Widget tracks asteroids and comets that will make relatively close approaches to Earth. The Widget displays the date of closest approach, approximate object diameter, relative size and distance from Earth for each encounter. The object's name is. The space rock, dubbed (231937) 2001 FO32, is likely the largest asteroid to make a close approach to Earth in 2021, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Studies (CNEOS). A NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx will soon attempt to touch the surface of an asteroid and collect loose rubble. Watch the sample collection “Touch-And-Go” maneuver in the player above. Amy Simon, deputy instrument scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, elaborated on this at the time, explaining that 'the presence of hydrated minerals across the asteroid confirms that Bennu, a remnant from early in the formation of the solar system, is an excellent specimen for the OSIRIS-REx mission to study. Have you heard about an asteroid close-approach happening on April 29? Asteroid 1998 OR2 poses no threat to our planet, but we can still learn a lot by study.
The space rock, dubbed (231937) 2001 FO32, is likely the largest asteroid to make a close approach to Earth in 2021, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Studies (CNEOS).
Based on its observed magnitude, the CNEOS estimates that the asteroid measures between 2,526 feet (0.47 miles) and 5,577 feet (1.05 miles) across.
The upper limit of this size estimate is larger than any other asteroid that will fly past our planet this year.
Even taking the asteroid's smallest size estimate, the space rock would still stand around the same height as the world's tallest building—the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
'The vast majority of near-Earth asteroids are very much smaller in diameter,' Don Yeomans, a former NASA planetary scientist, told Newsweek. 'As you go to smaller and smaller near-Earth asteroids there are more and more of them—because, over time, they keep running into each other and fragmenting into smaller sized objects.'
The space rock will come within around 1.3 million miles of our planet—equivalent to around five times the average distance between the Earth and the moon— at 11:03 a.m. ET on March 21. At this point, the asteroid will be quite bright and potentially visible through small instruments, mainly from the Southern Hemisphere, according to astronomer Gianluca Masi from the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP).
The VTP will be providing a live feed of the asteroid's fly-by beginning at 11 p.m. ET on March 21 (4 a.m. UTC on March 22) which is a few hours after the space rock's closest approach—when it will be much fainter and barely visible from the Northern Hemisphere at dawn.
In addition to its size, 2001 FO32 is also notable for its staggering speed. The space rock will be traveling at around 76,980 miles per hour at the time of closest approach, which also makes it the fastest asteroid to fly past Earth in 2021.
The object is classified as a 'near-Earth object' or 'NEO' because its orbit around the sun can take it within 30 million miles of Earth's own orbital path.
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Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Newsweek: 'The orbit is more elongated—higher eccentricity—than most near-Earth objects, but not unusually so. This gives it a higher velocity when passing through the inner solar system.'
Astronomers have also designated the asteroid as 'potentially hazardous.' This term is reserved for space objects estimated to measure more than 460 feet in diameter that can approach the Earth's orbit within 4.6 million miles.
Despite the 'potentially hazardous' tag, astronomers know the orbit of this object well and there is no chance it will strike our planet in the foreseeable future.
Binzel said there is currently 'zero' chance that 2001 FO32 will collide with Earth in future, noting that the object is 'not a threat.'
'The potentially hazardous designation simply notes that it is an important one to track and verify as zero, which is the case.'
Binzel said statistically, Earth impacts of objects the size of 2001 FO32 might occur on average every few million years. They would be 'regionally devastating, perhaps with some short-term global climate effects from dust lofted into the stratosphere.'
'It's why we search for them, track them, and catalog them just to make sure. So far so good—but astronomers still have work to do in continuing to discover, track, and catalog thousands and thousands more, just to be sure.'
Very little is known about the physical characteristics of 2001 FO32, but Yeomans said this will change 'dramatically' following observations that will be made during the upcoming close approach.
But measurements by MIT astronomers show have shown that FO32 has the same colors as rocky asteroids, so it did not originate as a comet, Binzel said.
'Likely it is an escapee from the asteroid belt, nudged into the inner solar system by Jupiter's gravitational perturbations. Just like 90 percent of all other near-Earth asteroids.'
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A bright fireball lit up skies over Michigan at 8:08 p.m. EST on Jan. 16, an event that was witnessed and reported by hundreds of observers, many who captured video of the bright flash.
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Based on the latest data, the extremely bright streak of light in the sky was caused by a six-foot-wide space rock — a small asteroid. It entered Earth’s atmosphere somewhere over southeast Michigan at an estimated 36,000 mph and exploded in the sky with the force of about 10 tons of TNT. The blast wave felt at ground level was equivalent to a 2.0 magnitude earthquake.
The fireball was so bright that it was seen through clouds by our meteor camera located at Oberlin college in Ohio, about 120 miles away.
Events this size aren’t much of a concern. For comparison, the blast caused by an asteroid estimated to be around 65 feet across entering over Chelyabinsk, Russia, was equivalent to an explosion of about 500,000 tons of TNT and shattered windows in six towns and cities in 2013. Meteorites produced by fireballs like this have been known to damage house roofs and cars, but there has never been an instance of someone being killed by a falling meteorite in recorded history.
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The Earth intercepts around 100 tons of meteoritic material each day, the vast majority are tiny particles a millimeter in diameter or smaller. These particles produce meteors are that are too faint to be seen in the daylight and often go unnoticed at night. Events like the one over Michigan are caused by a much rarer, meter-sized object. About 10 of these are seen over North America per year, and they often produce meteorites.
There are more than 400 eyewitness reports of the Jan. 16 meteor, primarily coming from Michigan. Reports also came from people in nearby states and Ontario, Canada, according to the American Meteor Society. Based on these accounts, we know that the fireball started about 60 miles above Highway 23 north of Brighton and travelled a little north of west towards Howell, breaking apart at an altitude of 15 miles. Doppler weather radar picked up the fragments as they fell through the lower parts of the atmosphere, landing in the fields between the township of Hamburg and Lakeland. One of the unusual things about this meteor is that it followed a nearly straight-down trajectory, with the entry angle being just 21 degrees off vertical. Normally, meteors follow a much more shallow trajectory and have a longer ground track as a result.
NASA’s Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center reported that a space-based lightning detector called the Geostationary Lightning Mapper — “GLM” for short — observed the bright meteor from its location approximately 22,300 miles above Earth. The SPoRT team helps organizations like the National Weather Service use unique Earth observations to improve short-term forecasts.
GLM is an instrument on NOAA’s GOES-16 spacecraft, one of the nation’s most advanced geostationary weather satellites. Geostationary satellites circle Earth at the same speed our planet is turning, which lets them stay in a fixed position in the sky. In fact, GOES is short for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. GLM detected the bright light from the fireball and located its exact position within minutes. The timely data quickly backed-up eyewitness reports, seismic data, Doppler radar, and infrasound detections of this event.
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Much like the nation’s weather satellites help us make decisions that protect people and property on Earth, NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office watches the skies to understand the meteoroid environment and the risks it poses to astronauts and spacecraft, which do not have the protection of Earth’s atmosphere. We also keep an eye out for bright meteors, so that we can help people understand that “bright light in the night sky.”