The near-Earth asteroid 2023 EY will cross near Earth on Thursday night (March 16), and you’ll watch it dwell due to a free telescope livestream.
Asteroid 2023 EY is roughly 52 ft (16 meters) throughout and is anticipated to cross inside 149,000 miles (239,800 kilometers) of Earth’s floor Thursday, or solely about 62% of the average lunar distance (opens in new tab), in response to astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Digital Telescope Venture. Whereas this makes the encounter very shut astronomically talking, there isn’t a probability of 2023 EY impacting our planet primarily based on its present trajectory.
The shut encounter with Earth signifies that bigger ground-based telescopes shouldn’t have any downside resolving the asteroid because it zooms by the planet. If you wish to watch the flyby, the Digital Telescope Venture will host a free livestream Thursday starting at 8:00 p.m. EST (0000 GMT on March 17) courtesy of the project’s website (opens in new tab) or YouTube channel (opens in new tab).
Associated: What are asteroids?
Asteroid 2023 EY was first found simply days in the past, on March 13, by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Final Alert System (ATLAS) operated by the College of Hawaii. ATLAS is the primary to have the ability to scan the whole sky each 24 hours, enabling astronomers to raised catalog and establish near-Earth objects reminiscent of asteroids.
The survey consists of 4 telescopes which can be every capable of survey an space of the sky 100 instances bigger than the full moon, according to NASA (opens in new tab). Two of the telescopes are in Hawaii, whereas the opposite two reside in South Africa and Chile, respectively.
Collectively, ATLAS has found over 700 near-Earth asteroids thus far, none of which has threatened the planet.
“We have now not but discovered any vital asteroid impact threat to Earth, however we proceed to seek for that sizable inhabitants we all know remains to be to be discovered. Our aim is to seek out any potential influence years to a long time upfront so it may be deflected with a functionality utilizing expertise we have already got, like DART,” NASA’s Lindley Johnson, planetary protection officer on the company’s headquarters, said in a statement (opens in new tab).
Whereas 2023 BY was by no means predicted to strike Earth, one other asteroid made waves not too long ago when it was given a 1-in-600 probability of hitting our planet in 2046. That different space rock longer poses a threat and can most definitely miss the planet, NASA introduced.
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