(ORDO NEWS) — On July 25, the potentially dangerous asteroid 2008 GO20 flew past the Earth at a distance of no more than 4.5 million kilometers. According to experts, the space object did not carry absolutely any threat to the planet.
NASA is closely monitoring each such asteroid in order to understand in advance whether a collision could occur or not. A catastrophe can occur only if the space body unexpectedly changes its flight trajectory, which happens extremely rarely.
It is reported by Live Science.
The speed of movement of the asteroid is almost 29 thousand kilometers per hour. Its diameter is within 97-220 meters. It is worth noting that experts refer to potentially dangerous space objects as all those whose size exceeds the mark of 150 meters and at the same time the distance to our planet is less than 7.5 million kilometers.
2008 GO20 is classified as a hazardous facility for another good reason. Gravitational attraction gradually changes the trajectory of the asteroid’s flight and no one excludes the possibility that in the future it may cross the Earth’s orbit and cause a catastrophe.
This is not the first time this asteroid has flown past our planet. The last flight took place in August 1901. Then the distance did not exceed 1.3 million kilometers. After that, the meeting took place in 1935 at a distance of about 1.85 million kilometers.
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