A asteroid The size of a minibus passed overnight through the southernmost tip of Patagonia, in a path that was closer than the orbit of some satellites on planet earth. Despite its large size, it was only discovered last week by Fannaidy Borisov, an amateur astronomer operating out of Crimea, the Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia since 2014.
The scientists were sure that this rock was not going to hit the planet, but even if it did, they were not afraid that it would have a great impact on the earth because it would have disintegrated in the atmosphere in a spectacular fireball, because it measures between 3.5 to 8.5 meters long. By comparison, the asteroid Chelyabinsk that entered the planet during 2013 was 20 meters long and when it impacted it generated a sound wave that shattered windows in the surrounding regions.
“Our team quickly discovered that the asteroid BU was not one that was going to impact, but despite the few observations we made, we were able to deduce that it will pass extraordinarily close to Earth. In fact this will be one of the closest approaches since there is record”, indicated David Farnocchia, NASA navigation officer to the aerospace agency itself.
It is normal that passing close to the planet earth affects in a relatively minor way the route of these heavenly bodiesbut because this object passed so few kilometers from the earth, finally the orbit that has this asteroid around the sun changed from circular to elliptical, going from only 359 days to complete one revolution around the sun to now taking 425 days.
stone age comet
But this is not the only astronomical moment of the week, because scientists discovered that a green comet that has not been seen for at least 50,000 years will pass close to Earth during late January and early February, when Humans were going through the Stone Age.
This object, which gets its hue from the color of diatomic carbon dyed by the sun’s ultraviolet rays, will pass within 2.5 light-minutes, or the equivalent of 27 million miles, from planet earth. and it can be seen more clearly in the southern hemisphere during the first days of February.