The first asteroid to be named 2016 CZ31 It will fly over Earth at about 23:00 GMT in FridayIt is around 02:00 AM Polish time (CEST). as NASA accountsThe speed of the asteroid will reach 55,618 km / h. The width of a celestial body is about 122 meters, which is equivalent to its height 40-storey skyscraper. Fortunately, this huge piece of rock will safely bypass our planet, passing about 2,800,000 km from Earth. This is more than 7 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.
As reported by NASA, this asteroid approaches our world every few years, and the next meeting is scheduled for January 2028.
second asteroid (2013 CU83close to the ground on Saturday. It is larger than the first and has a widest point of 183 meters. It will fly through space at a distance of 6,960,000 kilometers from the blue planet, which is 18 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon. It operates at a speed of about 21168 km / h and will approach us at 23:37 GMT, that is, 02.37 Poland time.
NASA and other space agencies They are constantly observing thousands of objects in spaceclose to the ground. At first glance, the above distances of asteroids passing through the Earth seem enormous, however, on the scale of the entire universe, they are close together.
Even if the trajectory of the celestial body is millions of kilometers from Earth, there is a very small chance that the asteroid’s orbit will be slightly altered by Earth’s gravity. Such a slight change could cause the asteroid to exist when it approaches the planet again collision course. As a result, space monitoring is taken very seriously.
In November 2021, NASA launched a special spacecraft called Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)to reach directly in Asteroid DemorphosWhich is 160 meters wide, and is scheduled to take place in the fall of 2022. The task is to test our planetary defenses against celestial bodies that might collide with the blue planet. It will not destroy the planned effect of the cosmic rock, but it may slightly alter its course.
