A “surprising” asteroid passed near Earth days after its discovery

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A newly discovered asteroid the size of two football fields passed close to Earth.
The rock, called 2022 OE2, was discovered in late July and reached a distance of at least 5.1 million km, more than 13 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.

An asteroid impact on Earth would release energy equivalent to a thousand nuclear bombs. But calm down, do not panic. This is because the star, despite being “close” in terms of astronomical distances, is still very far from colliding with our planet, according to information from NASA.

Apollo-class asteroid, the name given to those who orbit the sun and whose path through space often intersects with the orbit of the Earth. More than 15,000 objects like this are known and monitored by space agencies.

According to NASA, there is no danger of a known asteroid colliding with Earth in the next 100 years. But it’s worth emphasizing the “knowledge”: we’re discovering new objects all the time, and many of them come from “blind spots” like the direction of the sun, where they are undetectable by most telescopes.

For comparison purposes, the asteroid 2022 NF passed on July 7 at a distance of only 90 thousand kilometers, which is a much smaller distance than the current distance, and is still safe. Therefore, without panic, an asteroid will not destroy us today.

But you might be thinking: If these asteroids are so far away from us, why is it important to track them? Despite the distance, unexpected changes in the path can occur, such as a collision with another asteroid or the gravitational effect of another planet. This scenario is also seen as highly improbable, but potentially disastrous.

That’s why NASA developed and launched, in September 2021, the DART mission, or the “Double Asteroid Redirection Test.” He will test a new concept to avoid a potential collision between an asteroid and Earth: Instead of destroying the rock, as many suggest, the idea is to send a spacecraft to collide with it at low speed, giving a “push” that will change its orbit and avoid its impact. This is, of course, if we can detect and reach them in time.

The test will be conducted by the collision of the DART spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos, a 160-meter asteroid orbiting a larger planet called Didymos, at an altitude of 780 meters. The effectiveness of the impact and change in the Dimorphos’ trajectory will be closely monitored by a European cube called the LICIACube, and remotely here from Earth, allowing scientists to see if the plan is working.

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