Potentially dangerous asteroid, last seen 34 years ago, is heading towards Earth

A potentially dangerous asteroid, the diameter of which can reach 1.2 kilometers, is flying towards the Earth. It is interesting that 34 years ago, this celestial body already came close to the Earth, and then disappeared from sight for some time.

According to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Objects, asteroid 349507 (2008 QY) will fly past Earth on October 3 at a distance of about 6 million kilometers. It will make its closest approach to the Earth at 20:39 UTC, which corresponds to 00:39 Yerevan time. The minimum distance between the asteroid and Earth will be 0.042 AU, which is about 6.3 million km.

Collision of the asteroid with the Earth is not expected. However, it should be noted that astronomical objects crossing the Earth's orbit at a distance of less than 7.5 million kilometers are considered potentially dangerous. In addition, the asteroid is quite large, according to scientists, its diameter can vary between 520-1200 meters. The asteroid moves at a speed of 20.96 km per second.

Asteroid 349507 (2008 QY) was first observed and described on September 30, 1989. During the next 33.5 years, the asteroid remained unnoticed and came back to the attention of scientists only on February 13, 2023.

On June 12, the 1994 XD asteroid with a diameter of 300-800 meters approached the Earth, which is classified as "potentially dangerous" due to its large size. And on June 15, 2023, another asteroid the size of a skyscraper passed by the Earth.

And on March 25, the asteroid 2023 DZ2 passed by the Earth, which is three times larger than the asteroid that exploded in the Chelyabinsk sky in 2013, which caused damage to both buildings and people.

The European Space Agency is working on the "Near-Earth Object Observation Mission by Infrared Rays" (NEOMIR) project, which aims to create an opportunity to track potentially dangerous asteroids that cannot be detected by existing means.

Detecting asteroids dangerous to Earth is the task of ground-based and robotic observatories. However, there is an absolute blind spot for them: due to the sun's rays, they cannot observe the part of space that is between the Sun and the Earth. The meteorite that exploded in the Chelyabinsk sky in 2013 came from there, and this incident clearly showed that this part of the universe cannot be ignored, because there can be many similar objects near the Sun that could cause serious damage if they fell on Earth.