Last year, astronomers discovered thousands of previously unknown near-earth asteroids, which is a record for all the observation times. This is reported in the Nature magazine.
In the sixth of March 2021, Asteroid Apophis approached Earth at the closest distance in eight years. Space "pebbles" with a diameter of 340 meters flew by 16 million km from our planet, which is considered a safe distance.
In 2029, Apophis will return again, this time his meeting with Earth will not be so harmless: the asteroid will suit the planet for 30-40 thousand km and will be inside the geostationary orbit, according to which artificial satellites are treated around the planet. The stone guest can be seen with the naked eye. Astronomers for the first time in modern history will be able to observe a large asteroid so close.
Planetary protection
The span of an asteroid apophis last week gave scientists a good opportunity to test the system of warning about dangerous situations in the near-empty space. With special telescopes, scientists from different parts of the Earth monitor the night sky and track the near-earth objects that represent a potential danger to our planet. Attempts to observe apophis have shown that the teams of astronomers, in whatever part of the world they are not, can work together to ratify the threat emanating from cosmic "stones".Search asteroids
All aerospace agencies of the Earth have their own systems for warning about dangerous situations in the near-empty space. For example, NASA uses such systems to search for near-earth asteroids and evaluating their potential threat since 1998. During this time, the agency staff discovered 25,000 such objects. As Nature writes, last year has become a record on opening. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced the work of many scientists, the astronomers were found and brought into the catalog of 2958 previously unknown near-earth asteroids.
More than half of these bodies managed to notice with Catalina Sky Survey - three telescopes located in Arizona. Telescopes were able to detect even a completely tiny asteroid 2020 CD3, a diameter of less than 3 meters, which held the earthly gravity. The temporary satellite of the Earth ruined the shackles of gravity and left Geocentric orbit in April last year. Absolute star magnitude 2020 CD3 - 32M, albedo - 0.1-0.6.
[Article on the topic: European Space Agency: Earth threaten 15 thousand asteroids]
Another batch of near-earth asteroids - 1152 object, opened the PAN-STARRS telescope system in Hawaii. Among the curious finds - 2020 SO, which was not an asteroid, but part of the acceleration unit "Centaurus" of the Surveyor 2 apparatus, launched into space in 1966.
Some asteroids
Some of the near-earth objects found in 2020 came to the ground for a closely close distance. At least 107 of them passed by our planet at a distance, which is much less than the distance to the moon.
For example, in August, the asteroid 2020 QG flew just 2950 km over the Indian Ocean. And after three months, another small object with a diameter of 5-10 meters - 2020 VT4, passed only 345 km from the Earth, which is below the ISS orbit. The first pictures were obtained only 15 hours after he became close to our planet. If he entered the tight layers of the atmosphere, then, most likely, would fall apart.
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