Potentially dangerous asteroid approaches Earth at 124,000 km / h

The asteroid's official name is 231937 (2001 FO32) and ranges in diameter from 0.8 to 1.7 kilometers. On March 21 at 16.03 GMT (that is, 19.03 Moscow time), the asteroid will approach the Earth at a distance of about 2 million kilometers. This is the distance that astronomers classify as "potentially dangerous".

An asteroid is designated as "potentially dangerous" when its orbit intersects with Earth at a distance of no more than 7.5 million kilometers, and it itself has a diameter of more than 140 meters. Despite its frightening characteristics, in reality, none of the known asteroids poses a serious threat to the Earth for the next 100 years. The largest known threat is believed to be an asteroid called (410777) 2009 FD. According to NASA astronomers, in 2185 it could crash into the Earth with a probability of 1 in 714 - that is, less than 0.2%.

Scientists are now investigating methods to deflect asteroids that are dangerously close to Earth. For example, the use of the gravity of a flying spacecraft, which would slowly move asteroids from their trajectory to a safe distance.