(ORDO NEWS) — ESA reports that they have managed to eliminate one of the most threatening asteroids from the list of potential collisions.
The asteroid, known as 2021 QM1, was first discovered at the Mount Lemmon Observatory on August 28, 2021.
It was just one of about a dozen near-Earth asteroids discovered that night, and at first did not cause any alarm. However, subsequent observations indicated that it could collide with Earth around 2052.
With a diameter of about 50 meters, 2021 QM1 is powerful enough to produce an explosion equivalent to almost six megatons of TNT at an altitude of just 9 kilometers (6 miles).
Compared to the most commonly used metric for high-energy strikes, this is 400 times the strength of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Only once in recent history has an asteroid of this size collided with Earth. Fortunately, the Tunguska explosion, which released a whopping 12 megatons of energy, took place over a remote part of Siberia.
Therefore, although he leveled 2,150 square kilometers of forest, it is believed that only three people died as a result of this event. But if such an impact occurred over a populated area, the result could be catastrophic.
This event was undoubtedly on the minds of asteroid defense experts during the collection of subsequent data on 2021 QM1.
Unfortunately for their nerves, another astronomical event made them a little nervous. The asteroid disappeared behind the Sun for several months, making further observations impossible.
Patience is a virtue for most scientists, so they waited patiently and planned to collect more data with one of the best weapons in an asteroid hunter’s arsenal, the Very Large Telescope.
When the asteroid appeared from behind the sun, they were ready. And they managed to get an image of the dimmest asteroid ever observed.
This observation showed that the probability that 2021 QM1 will crash into the Earth in 2052, as originally predicted, is 0 percent. Its orbital trajectory will not pose any danger for the foreseeable future.
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