Largest Asteroid Known to Pass Earth in 2021: Must Know About March 21 Event

Flying asteroid: The largest asteroid flying over Earth this year is expected to approach our planet on March 21st. Known as 2001 FO32, the asteroid is a large rock classified as Near Earth (NEO) and orbits the sun near Earth. NEOn are those celestial substances that are on a path that could take them within 30 million miles of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. The US space agency NASA has said that about 25,000 NEOs have been identified so far, including a handful of comets and a large number of asteroids.

Of this large number of NEOs, approximately 2,100 are classified as potentially dangerous.

Like NASA, potentially dangerous NEOs are those that have a diameter greater than 460 feet and have orbits entering Earth’s orbit to within 4.6 million miles. These NEOs are classified as potentially dangerous because they have orbits that are close to Earth. As a result of the gravity of several planets, the paths of asteroids continue to change, and there is the potential, over centuries and thousands of years, for the changes in the orbits of these potential NEOs. dangerous causing to cross the Earth ‘s orbit. This makes it important to monitor these asteroids over the coming decades to study the evolution of orbits and any possible changes in their orbits.

According to this definition of potentially dangerous NEOs, 2001 FO32 corresponds to this category, and its diameter is estimated to measure between 2,526 feet and 5,577 feet. The asteroid comes within 1.3 million miles of the Earth.

NASA actively monitors asteroids present near Earth and several such programs scan the skies every day, and with each NEO, scientists closely monitor them until the -increase their path and their ability to cross paths with our planet.