Asteroid one step away from Earth before entering the lunar orbit: no danger – Contattolab

Some had believed in it, the world is ending, this time is the good one, the hope was so much surfing the forums dealing with plots and disasters of all kinds, even those related to the Mayan calendar of 2012 to speak. They were days that there was talk of this new asteroid, huge, that within a few hours could have hit our planet, causing an unprecedented disaster. Fortunately, in fact, logically it was a “very slight” overstatement of the facts, as often happens in these cases. The asteroid in question, actually is one of those extremely small celestial bodies, with a diameter under 10 meters, one of many that orbit the boundary between the earth and the moon, in some cases, like the protagonist 2016 LT1, has been pushed a little closer to the ground, but nothing abnormal, always at a tolerable safety distance.

The passage of an asteroid to “few” steps from the earth remains an event, especially for the fans, who, telescope in hand to 22.25 were able to observe the long-awaited passage of 2016 LT1, asteroid with a diameter of only 6 meters. The small, rocky body greeted the orbit of the earth touching a record distance of 153,000 kilometers, almost half of that of the moon, thus extremely close and ended up being “absorbed” from lunar orbit. However, such phenomena do not cause concern, despite the close proximity, according to experts, we are still at a safe distance, therefore, has never had the risk of a possible impact.

An asteroid is so small It might seem like a trivial matter, however, bodies such as 2016 LT1, are very useful to study, thanks to their extremely small diameter it is possible to study and monitor in detail the orbit. But the most important aspect is the demonstration of how technology has reached impressive power. Being able to spot small asteroids like this demonstrates “the technological level reached by the automated search programs, although sometimes some of these celestial bodies escapes the survey, revealing how important the support and development of projects of this type.” experts say. The asteroid was discovered on 4 June by the automatic search program Panstarrs, in Hawaii, and the Virtual Telescope, photographed him as he crossed to the stars to nearly 2 million kilometers from Earth. This evening, however, the performance of its passage has been appreciated by all fans.

asteroid (notes)

asteroid (sometimes called asteroid or planetoid ) is a celestial body similar in composition to a terrestrial planet, but smaller, and generally devoid of a spherical shape; generally it has a diameter of less than km, although there are large bodies because technically also very massive bodies recently discovered in the outer solar system asteroids are considered.

It is thought that the asteroids are residues the protoplanetary disk that have not been incorporated in the planets, during the formation of the system. Most asteroids are located in the main belt, and some have satellites of asteroids. Often characterized by a high eccentricity orbits. very small asteroids (usually fragments resulting from collisions), with the size of a boulder or less (according to the International Astronomical Union, the body mass of between 10 ^-9 and 10 ⁷ kg), they are known as. “meteoroid”

the compounds asteroids for most of the ice are known instead as comets. Some asteroids are remnants of old comets that have lost their ice in the course of repeated approaches to the Sun, and are now composed mostly of rock.