(ORDO NEWS) — A large asteroid is approaching Earth. This object was recorded by experts in 2007. It was then called 2007 UY1. Only a couple of days ago, its approach was noticed, which was immediately reported on the official NASA website.
This asteroid was assigned to the Aton group. This category includes those cosmic bodies whose orbits intersect with the orbit of the Earth.
Due to the risk of collision, these asteroids require constant monitoring. The diameter of the cosmic body, which is approaching the planet, reaches 150 meters, which is even larger than the size of a football field.
Collision with large asteroids is extremely rare. The most devastating was the fall of the Tunguska meteor in 1908. It happened in Siberia.
Experts note that the explosion of a cosmic body occurred at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. In this case, not so serious asteroid falls are recorded much more often. Most cases occur in fairly distant corners of our planet, so few people pay attention to them.
In 2013, a meteorite explosion occurred over Chelyabinsk at an altitude of about 30 kilometers. This was the reason that window panes flew out in the houses and almost one and a half thousand local residents received injuries of varying severity.
The explosion was strong enough and can be compared with the explosion of 30 atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima. Serious destruction did not occur only due to the fact that the cosmic body exploded high enough. Such collisions, according to scientists, occur three times in a hundred years.
Governments of different countries pay a lot of attention to this problem. They are taking some tentative measures to avoid a truly catastrophic collision.
NASA has opened a new planetary defense coordination office to monitor asteroids. The division exchanges information with other countries and monitors the location of space objects.
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