An asteroid has just suddenly passed by the Earth’s Antarctic region on October 24 without any prior warning from scientists.
According to Cnet, asteroid 2021 UA1 is a space rock with an estimated diameter of about 2m. This rock on the evening of October 24, Pacific time flew past the Earth at a position above the Antarctic region, at an altitude of 3,000km. This distance is farther than the orbit of the International Space Station ISS but significantly closer than the large communication satellites in geostationary orbit.
Asteroid 2021 UA1 is considered the 3rd closest approach to Earth in history that did not end in a collision. If this happens unfortunately, 2021 UA1 will largely burn up as it passes through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Before that, asteroid 2020 QG flew even closer to Earth in August 2020. However, the closest approach without a collision must be the time when the asteroid VT4 2020 flew by Earth at a distance of 400km, nearly equivalent to the height of the ISS. In 2013, a meteorite with a diameter of 40m, 20 times larger than 2021 UA1, crashed into the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in the sky, blowing away thousands of windows in the city of Chelyabinsk. , Russia.
Meanwhile, asteroid 2021 UA1 approached Earth from the direction of the Sun, similar to the Chelyabinsk meteorite, so it fell into a blind spot, making it impossible for scientists to detect it in time. Upcoming NASA missions, including the NEO Surveyor space telescope, will be designed to remove this limitation.
All three appearances of near-Earth objects have occurred in the last 18 months alone. But that doesn’t mean there are many asteroids circling the Earth, but in fact reflects advances in sky survey technology and the ability of satellites to detect and track near-Earth objects. Astronomers.
