El tiempo - Tutiempo.net

Dangerous Asteroid to Pass Near Earth Next September

  • Published in World
  • Hits: 6744
The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a warning this Friday about the threat to Earth caused by the passage of a 40-metre asteroid to more than six million kilometres from the planet on Sept. 9.
 
Called QV89 in 2006, the collision possibility is one in 7,299, with a probability that it will go much further than the Moon, which is 384,400 kilometers from us, according to ESA.
 
However, they are assessments subjected to possible changes due to the evolution of the asteroid's trajectory, says the agency dedicated to space exploration.
 
In case of collision, the asteroid would not have capacity to end life on Earth, but ESA warns that its impact would be more powerful than that caused by the Chelyabinsk bolide.
 
On February 15, 2013, a 17-meter high and 15-meter wide meteoroid flew over several Russian provinces and the city of Chelyabinsk, south of the Ural Mountains, as it entered the Earth's atmosphere.
 
Between 4,000 and 6,000 kilograms of meteorites, including a fragment of about 650 kilograms, impacted the Earth's surface. The one released an energy of 500 kilotons, thirty times higher than the nuclear bomb of Hiroshima, when exploding at approximately 20,000 meters of height, which caused injuries to more than a thousand people and caused material damage.
 
So far, experts explain that 2006 QV89 is one of the near-Earth asteroids that periodically cross our planet. After next September it will visit us again in 2032, 2045 and 2062, according to ESA, which is following its evolution. / PL