2023-07-20 16:17:16
The US space agency (NASA) has always been reassuring eyes for watching asteroids approaching our planet, but one of these asteroids managed to slip through without us seeing it. An asteroid named “2023 NT1” was able to approach a distance of 62,000 miles from Earth, which is equivalent to a quarter of the distance between Earth and the Moon on July 13. But NASA scientists were not able to discover it until two days following it approached Earth, because it came from the side of the sun and was obscured by light. The diameter of “2023 NT1” is regarding 200 feet, and it moves away from the ground at a speed of regarding 25,000 miles per hour. It is larger than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and it is larger than the “Chelyabinsk” meteorite, which has a diameter of 60 feet, which injured regarding 1,600 people when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere in 2013. According to information from NASA and the International Astronomical Union, “2023 NT1” approached Earth in July 13th. And the first to see this asteroid was the “Atlas of South Africa” observatory, which is a telescopic system dedicated to detecting dangerous asteroids. Despite the size of this asteroid, and its great proximity to Earth, it is not considered a threat to Earth, according to what scientists say, who emphasized that the asteroid is dangerous if its diameter is greater than 459 feet and it approaches regarding 4.65 million miles from planet Earth. Although the asteroid “2023 NT1” passed near Earth without problems, its discovery highlighted that scientists are having trouble detecting some asteroids by looking at the sun’s glare. As is the case with this asteroid, the “Chelyabinsk” meteor passed near Earth regarding a decade ago, without being noticed because of its brightness because the point from which it came was close to the sun. This meteorite exploded in the form of a mass of flame over Russia a decade ago, leaving energy equivalent to 500 thousand tons of explosive “TNT”, which led to two earthquakes around the world. In order to face the threat of this type of asteroids coming from space that are obscured by the sun’s rays, the European Space Agency will launch its observatory called “Neomir”, which will orbit with the Earth by 2030. This observatory will play the role of an early warning system to detect and monitor any meteor that approaches the Earth from the side of the sun. This observatory will be in a place of space between Earth and the sun, where asteroids and meteors coming from that direction are not seen.
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