2023-07-17 20:43:37
A space rock passed less than a third of the Earth-Moon distance on July 13, 2023, but it wasn’t until days later that it might be detected from an Observatory in South Africa.
The asteroid has been named as 2023 NT1 and was traveling at a speed of 25,233 miles per hour (40,608 km/h). “As we have mentioned before, this event shows that we are vulnerable to seeing some small or medium-sized asteroids enter our atmosphere, since we still do not have the resources and technology to detect those that are approaching from the direction where we see the Sun. “, said the Caribbean Astronomical Society (SAC).
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The educational entity indicated that 2023 NT1 is an asteroid twice the size of the one that penetrated the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013, since the rock that has just had a remarkable approach has a diameter of 118 feet (36 meters). . An analysis of the orbit reveals that the close pass occurred at regarding 6:12 a.m. on July 13.
Although asteroids are currently detected through images captured every 15 minutes at night, the SAC highlighted that the European Space Agency (ESA) is building a space telescope called NEOMIR (Near-Earth Object Mission in the InfraRed), which will be located between the Earth and the Sun to monitor space rocks of 20 meters or more and that currently go unnoticed.
While NASA is developing another mission called NEO Surveyor that will also strengthen the early detection of asteroids with orbits that come close to Earth.
“The problem is that ESA’s new telescope will not be launched until 2030 and NASA’s in 2026, so we will still have some scares with small asteroids entering Earth undetected,” the SAC warned. At the same time, he clarified that fortunately these small and medium-sized asteroids are not large enough to cause extinction events, but perhaps some regional damage.
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A large part of these rocks disintegrate upon entering the atmosphere, while most of those that intersect the Earth do so over the oceans, since 70% of our planet is covered by water.
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