A Fridge-Size Asteroid Skimmed Earth This Week in the Third-Closest Fly-By Ever
upstart writes:
A fridge-size asteroid skimmed Earth this week in the third-closest fly-by ever:
A sneaky space rock sped by Antarctica on Sunday without any advance warning and narrowly avoided being fully incinerated by Earth's atmosphere.
Asteroid 2021 UA1 goes down as the third-closest fly-by of our planet by a near-Earth object that didn't end in an impact. The cosmic boulder is estimated to be about two meters (6.6 feet) in diameter, the size of a large appliance or a golf cart.
[...] 2021 UA1 passed over Antarctica on Sunday evening Pacific time at an altitude of about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers). That's higher than where the International Space Station orbits but significantly closer than the ring of large communications satellites in geostationary orbit.
[...] 2021 UA approached us from the direction of the sun -- just like the Chelyabinsk bolide[*], which was undetected before impact -- making it impossible for astronomers to spot ahead of time. Upcoming missions like NASA's NEO Surveyor are designed to eliminate this blind spot.
[*] Chelyabinsk meteor on Wikipedia.
Also at minorplanetcenter.net and Wikipedia.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.