It’s not uncommon for celebrities to visit to commemorate the event.
But what if that event was the Tunguska event, which destroyed 849 square miles of Siberia in 1908? And what if the “celebrity” was a 1.4-mile planet-destroying asteroid?
The United Nations has designated June 30th as International Asteroid Day.
It is the anniversary of the Tunguska event, the largest explosion in recorded history. The purpose of this event is to: Asteroid impact risk.
But this year, to celebrate the eighth anniversary, two uninvited guests showed up.
One is specified 415029 (2011 UL21)It is as big as Mount Everest.
And this official public health hazard will be one of the closest asteroids to Earth this year.
The other is an unexpected arrival.
It was only discovered a week ago.
It is called 2024It has a diameter of 492 feet, and on June 29th it will come closer to Earth than the Moon.
Planet Killer 2011 UL21 is moving at 16.1 miles per second, or 75.5 times the speed of sound.
Studies of the amount of light it reflects as it rotates every 2.7 hours suggest that its diameter is between 0.93 miles and 2.36 miles.
The European Space Agency (ESA) goes into more detail, saying that the diameter is about 1.4 miles.
Asteroid 2024 MK is moving at 5.82 miles per second (27 times the speed of sound), and initial estimates put its diameter at about 492 feet.
ESA warned that the discovery of 2024MK just days from Earth “highlights the need to continuously improve our capabilities to detect and monitor potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs).”
The monster, believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, is estimated to have been about 6.2 miles wide.
By comparison, the space rock that wiped out 80 million trees during Tunguska is thought to have been just 49.2 feet in diameter.
Cosmic Pinball
a Recently reviewed The orbits of all known asteroids were examined to reassess the potential risks to Earth.
“This is good news,” said Oscar Fuentes Muñoz, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Review.
“As far as we know, there will be no impacts for the next 1,000 years.”
Even a close encounter with an asteroid the size of 2011 UL21 is considered a rare event.
It passes close enough to be observed about once every 10 years.
Although it is officially classified as “medium-sized,” it is still larger than 99 percent of known asteroids.
And it is one of the 10 largest asteroids observed to pass within 4.35 million miles of Earth in the past century.
As a result, the Bellatrix Observatory in Ceccano, Italy, will be keeping a close watch as 2011 UL21 makes its closest approach just before dawn on Friday Australian time.
The video feed will be broadcast live. Virtual Telescope Project.
