On July 25 round 3 am (IST), a big asteroid is predicted to soundly fly previous our planet. Named “2008 GO20″, the near-earth asteroid could possibly be about 200 metres in size, bigger than a soccer subject.
Based on NASA estimates, it would whiz previous Earth at a velocity of 8.2 km per second and will likely be about three to 4 million kilometres away from our planet. That is virtually eight to 9 occasions the gap between Earth and the Moon.
Frequent customer
The newest go to by 2008 GO20 was on June 20, 2008, and it’s anticipated to fly previous once more on July 25, 2034.
What are near-earth objects NEOs?
Based on NASA, NEOs are asteroids and comets that come near Earth. The vast majority of these NEOs are asteroids and are referred to as Close to-Earth Asteroids (NEAs). NEAs are additional divided into Atira, Aten, Apollo and Amor relying upon their distance and axes.
2008 GO20 is assessed as an Apollo NEO. Apollos have an orbit close to our Earth’s and are additionally referred to as Earth-crossers as they cross the Earth’s orbit. They’re named after the 1862 Apollo asteroid.
Is 2008 GO20 a Doubtlessly Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)?
Close to-Earth asteroids that fly beneath 0.05 astronomical models or 7.5 million km away are termed as Doubtlessly Hazardous Asteroids. Since 2008 GO20 will fly by at 0.02 to 0.03 au away, it’s a PHA. One astronomical unit is about 150 million km or roughly the gap between Earth and the Solar.
Is that this a uncommon occasion?
No. Based on NASA’s Heart for Close to-Earth Object Research, on July 21, six NEOs are anticipated to fly previous Earth at a distance lower than 0.05 au.
After 2008 GO20’s go to on July 24, NEOs named 2021 OF, 2020 BW12 and 2019 YM6 are anticipated to fly close to Earth on July 26, July 27 and July 31 respectively.
