(ORDO NEWS) — The asteroid, the size of which reaches the size of a car, flew close to our planet at a distance of only 1609 kilometers.
An asteroid 2020QG flew by at an incredibly close distance near Earth. Astronomers noticed him only after he had already flown a decent distance from our planet.
If we take into account NASA data on objects that are approaching Earth, then an asteroid the size of a car flew 1609 above the surface of our planet. This is even slightly lower than artificial satellites are located in orbit. Today, it is this cosmic body that holds the record for approaching the Earth over the past 100 years, when observations are being made.
Asteroid 2020 QG has received its personal serial number ZTF0DxQ. It was discovered by the observatory specialists only a few hours after it flew as close as possible to our planet. Despite the fact that the space object was discovered late enough, it would not cause any harm at all, even if it somehow managed to enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA has provided rough estimates of the space object. The diameter of the asteroid is 3-6 meters, which resembles the size of the Tesla Model 3. Such objects, even if they collide with the Earth, burn up right in the atmosphere. Just a couple of years ago, an asteroid of about the same size, which was named 2018 LA, was discovered before it collided with Earth. Only small fragments flew to the surface and fell in Africa. They did not bring any harm to the planet or people at all.
The meteorite that exploded over Russia in 2013 was about 10 times larger.
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