Newly Discovered Asteroid Passes Between Earth And The Moon
Experts say small space rock poses no risk to Earth
An asteroid discovered only last week made a close but safe pass between Earth and the Moon on Monday.
The small space rock, the size of a car and named 2024 CY1, passed at a distance of almost a third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon, also known as the distance of 1 Moon.
According to the Virtual Telescope Project, the spacecraft passed by the planet at around 7.24 a.m. GMT (10.24 a.m. PT), a close distance of about 121,000 kilometers.
Experts say this object, which is only 4 to 8 meters in diameter, does not pose any risk to Earth.
With this discovery, it is the 10th time this year that an asteroid has been observed by astronomers passing within a lunar distance of Earth.
This is also the third such event so far in February.
Tomorrow night, the newly discovered #asteroid 2024 CY1 will pass less than 1/3 of the distance from the Moon. Its width is 3-8 meters.
Last month, astronomers spotted an asteroid hurtling towards Earth just hours before it entered the planet’s atmosphere.
The space rock, dubbed 2024 BXI, burned into a harmless fireball in the skies over Berlin, marking the eighth time an asteroid has been detected just before hitting the Earth.
Space enthusiasts also found pieces of the space rock in the vicinity of Berlin.
On February 12, 2024, the near-Earth asteroid 2024 CY1 will have a very close but safe encounter with us, coming to a distance of about 121 thousand km from Earth, about 31 percent of the average lunar distance. The Virtual Telescope Project will show it to you live!
In previous weeks, an asteroid roughly the size of a skyscraper had safely zoomed past Earth at a distance of about 2.7 million kilometers.
Although the rock was classified as “potentially dangerous” due to its size, it passed about 7 times the distance between the planet and the Moon.
To date, astronomers have discovered about 25,000 asteroids with the potential to completely destroy at least one city.
The European Space Agency (ESA), on the other hand, suspects that there could be as many as 1 million asteroids in the same size range (30 to 100 meters) near Earth, of which about 99 percent are still undiscovered.
Space agencies and governments around the world are working to identify these potentially dangerous objects and develop ways to protect the Earth from them.
For example, ESA’s Neomir satellite observatory, due for launch around 2030, will orbit between the Sun and Earth, acting as an early warning system for asteroids.
