NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is an agency of the Federal Government of the United States that researches and develops technologies and programs for space exploration. In this way, the agency revealed that it is monitoring a very large asteroid that will come very close to Earth on April 28 of this year. Check out more information about this below.
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Asteroids are celestial bodies that orbit the Sun, but are small compared to the planets in the solar system. Most are unknown, but there are many near-Earth asteroids.
However, some of them, especially those up to 150 meters in size, can cause serious damage if there is a collision. Therefore, programs are being developed all over the world to discover and study the physical characteristics of these objects.
Officially named 418135 (2008 AG33), this asteroid measures about 332 to 741 meters in diameter and is expected to pass by planet Earth at 10.4 kilometers per second, according to the NASA website.
Furthermore, as highlighted by Filipe Vieira de Melo Monteiro, doctor in astronomy at the National Observatory, the asteroid 418135 will pass at a safe distance of 0.02167 AU (unit astronomical). Since each astronomical unit equals about 150 million kilometers, the distance traveled by the body celestial space is about 3.24 million kilometers, which is equivalent to about 8.4 times the average distance between the Moon and Earth. Earth.
This huge celestial body is currently traveling at a very high speed. Thus, the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) – which is NASA's main center for exploring space with robots – the classifies it as a “potentially hazardous asteroid” because it is expected to make a close encounter with Earth.
Asteroid 418135 (2008 AG33) has no risk of colliding with our planet, now or in the future. However, all PHAs (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids) deserve special attention due to the existing chances that frequent close encounters with Earth and other rocky planets occur, facilitating changes in their orbits.
