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Asteroid 2008 OS7 is estimated to be the size of America's 1,250-foot Empire State Building. (Photo: News Week)
JAKARTA – NASA announced that a giant asteroid will pass near Earth on Friday, February 3 2024. It is so big, this asteroid is estimated to be the size of the Empire State Building in America, 1,250 feet high.
This potentially dangerous asteroid, named 2008 OS7, is estimated to be between 690 and 1,570 feet wide. This asteroid will pass near Earth at a distance of approximately 0.01908 astronomical units or 1.77 million miles. For comparison, the moon orbits at a distance of 240,000 miles, while Venus is 38 million miles away at its closest point.
Reporting from News Week, Thursday (1/2/2024), the closest pass of the asteroid 2008 OS7 to Earth will occur on Friday afternoon at a speed of around 18.2 km/second, or 40,700 mph. By comparison, a high-velocity bullet can travel between 600 and 2,000 mph.
Asteroids are rock fragments left over from the formation of the solar system, mostly found in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The majority of these asteroids are quite small, but some are very large. The largest asteroid is called Ceres and has a diameter of about 600 miles. Occasionally, Jupiter's gravity or an impact will hurl one of these asteroids into the inner solar system, speeding past it.
Asteroid 2008 OS7 is classified as a Near-Earth Object (NEO) and a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) because of its size and how close it will approach Earth. NEOs are defined as being within 30 million miles of Earth, with 31,000 solar system objects falling into this category. PHA, on the other hand, is closer than 4.6 million miles and is also larger than 460 feet in diameter. NASA tracks about 2,350 PHAs.
“A potentially dangerous asteroid is one whose orbit intersects the Earth's orbit around the Sun by more than 0.05 astronomical units (1 AU is the distance to the Sun), which is just over 4.5 million miles. It must also have an absolute brightness of 22, 0 or less (lower values of brighter magnitude = larger object), which is an asteroid (or comet) that would cause significant regional damage if it hit Earth,” said Martin Barstow, professor of astrophysics and space sciences at the University of Leicester in the UK.
“Not all NEOs are potentially dangerous, but all dangerous objects are NEOs.”
He added, Earth will remain safe from the 2008 OS7 asteroid, because this asteroid will not approach the collision point.
Minjae Kim, a researcher at the University of Warwick, expressed a similar opinion. He said humanity does not need to worry too much because this asteroid will not enter Earth's atmosphere.
“There are more than millions of asteroids in our Solar System, of which about 2,350 asteroids have been classified as PHA. The next significant approach to Earth by a PHA will be 99942 Apophis on April 14, 2029,” he said.
Unfortunately, for astronomy lovers, asteroid 2008 OS7 will be difficult to see. The reason is, asteroids are generally too faint to be detected by current techniques and surveys, so they are very difficult to see with the naked eye. “The only asteroids so far visible to the naked eye are Pallas and Vesta, with a diameter of about 500 km,” said Minjae Kim.
(msf)