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Asteroids often make close approaches to Earth, making it imperative to discover and track them for potential impacts. While these space rocks may rarely ever hit Earth, their size, and history of impacts is enough to spread fear in the scientific community. But it seems like asteroids aren’t only plaguing us in real life, but in video games too. Players of Starfield, Bethesda’s new open-world RPG, have been reporting issues of being followed by asteroids wherever they go! Not only in space, but asteroids are also accompanying players when they touch down on a planet’s surface! NASA itself had earlier reacted to Starfield in a humor-filled way.
In a separate, real-life development, NASA has shed light on an asteroid that will pass Earth at an extremely close distance today, September 21.
Asteroid 2023 SJ details
According to details revealed by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), this asteroid, designated as Asteroid 2023 SJ is expected to make its closest approach to Earth today, September 21. Its orbit will bring it as close as 6.4 million kilometers near Earth. While this distance might seem a lot, it is quite short in astronomical terms. It has been estimated to be travelling at a breakneck speed of 59348 kilometers per hour.
According to NASA, the asteroid that is approaching Earth is not expected to impact Earth’s surface and isn’t big enough to be classified as a Potentially Hazardous Object. Asteroid 2023 SJ is estimated to be between 118 feet and 265 feet wide, which is not big enough to be classified as a Potentially Hazardous Object. In terms of size, it is nearly as big as an aircraft.
It belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-crossing space rocks with semi-major axes larger than Earth’s. These asteroids are named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.
Asteroids found hiding behind the Sun
Most of the asteroids are found in the main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter, and they can easily be observed with the help of advanced ground and space-based telescopes. However, scientists have now found 3 elusive asteroids hiding behind the glare of the Sun!
According to NASA, one of them is the largest object that is potentially hazardous to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years. To find and observe them, a team used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The region around the Sun is an extremely challenging place to locate celestial objects as astronomers have to deal with the Sun’s glare.
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