Tonight: Flyby of Asteroid 2012 DA14

The closest approach to such guessing in decades is around 20:20 today

On Friday evening, Earth will receive a celestial visit: Approximately 45 meters of asteroid 2012 DA14 will then approach our planet, because for decades no more piece of its size. It collides around us only 27,800 kilometers from the Earth's surface - so it continues to orbit geostationary satellites. Several observatories offer a live broadcast of this incident.

The asteroid, christened 2012 DA14, was discovered by astronomers at the Spanish Observatory on February 23, 2012, almost exactly a year ago. Rather, with a size of about 45 meters, it is one of the smaller spatial lumps. If such an asteroid would hit Earth, it would have at least locally serious consequences. The impact of this magnitude could cause devastation similar to the event of Tunguska in Siberia in 1908. At that time, an asteroid exploded in the atmosphere and rooted trees in a sparsely populated wooded area 30 km away.

Satellite interference is unlikely but not excluded

But we don't have to worry about it on February 15: NASA astronomers, who have been watching DA14 for nearly a year in 2012, made it clear shortly after it was discovered: The asteroid will not hit Earth, they said. The probability is less than 0.0003 percent or one to 300,000. Therefore, on the Turin Risk Scale, DA14 is still ranked in the lowest category 0 in 2012. Approximately every 40 years, an asteroid of this size is so close to strike, strike only about every 1200 years.

However, the asteroid is approaching our planet during its flight: the next approach, between 22:00 and 21:00 Friday night, the rock will only pass approximately 27,700 kilometers above the Earth's surface. "It's a record," says Don Yeomans of the NASA Near-Earth Object Program. "Since the beginning of regular observation of the sky in the 1990s, we have never seen an object of this size fly so close to Earth."

2012 The DA14 will continue to orbit geostationary meteorological and communications satellites that are about 35,800 kilometers in length. A collision with one of these satellites is unlikely - but it is not entirely ruled out, Yeomans says. As a precautionary measure, satellite operators were warned and informed about the asteroid trajectory.

https://cs.duncanda.com/heute-abend-240291

Asteroid flyby 20:20 in the year 2020

In the Air Tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7x32gwqEAc