“Potentially dangerous” asteroid to pass near Earth on January 18

Tuesday January 18, 2022, 9:51 pm It is the hour at which the asteroid “1994 PC1” should pass very close to the Earth. It is “potentially dangerous” according to NASA since it measures about a kilometer. Three times the Eiffel Tower, two and a half times the Empire State Building or a dozen football fields: this is to say what the big stone could cause damage if it were to strike the blue planet.

But fortunately, everything is relative. If we estimate that the asteroid will not pass very far from the Earth, it is still at a distance of 1.93 million kilometers, or five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. So don’t panic, there is no chance that “1994 PC1” will collide with our planet. In any case, this is what scientists believe.

On actu.fr, the asteroid specialist Antonella Barucci claims that there is “no risk of him falling to earth“.”We have a lot of information about him“, explains the astronomer.”Its orbit is well calculated, and for a long time“, she wishes to reassure, without denying that”the damage would be very important“if this asteroid were to hit Earth.

“It would be really catastrophic. Not at a global extinction level, but certainly for the environment around the crater“, abounds Nathalie Ouellette, astrophysicist at the University of Montreal, in an interview in Quebec Matin relayed by TVA news. It is for this reason that the NASA, which takes the subject very seriously, launched last November the project DART, whose goal is to change the trajectory of an asteroid by throwing a vessel at 24,000 km / h, in order to avoid a potential collision.

It will be possible to see the asteroid on January 18, due to its size and its relative proximity. For this, it will be necessary to equip yourself with a telescope of at least six inches, because the asteroid is not bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. The Virtual Telescope project will also allow it to be observed online. It should be taken advantage of, because it will not come back to Earth until 2105.