Huge “potentially dangerous” asteroid will pass close to Earth on Halloween

No danger, but newly-discovered asteroid 2022 RM4 will pass less than 6 lunar distances on November 1. Possibly as wide as 740 meters, it will brighten to mag 14.3, well within reach of backyard telescopes. @unistellar
This is very close for an asteroid this size. #2022RM4 pic.twitter.com/Z8khblg3Gq

—Tony Dunn (@tony

) October 5, 2022

By what is considered “potentially dangerous”?

Any space body that is within 193 millions of kilometers from Earth is described by NASA as a “near-Earth object”. If it is 7.5 million km away, then it is classified as a “potentially dangerous” object, which is the case of 2022 RM4 .

Anyway, astronomers will monitor the behavior of this asteroid, especially when it is closest to our planet and to be aware of any deviation that may occur.

A system that has given results to detect asteroids

Since 2017, the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Warning System (Atlas), composed of four telescopes that work every day to identify possible threats, has already registered some 000,000 asteroids, 700 of them classified as near Earth, in addition to others 66 comets.

Atlas has also managed to detect two other objects that crashed on Earth. The 2019 MO exploded off the southern coast of Puerto Rico, while 2018 LA crashed near the Botswana-South Africa border. Both asteroids were too small to do much damage.

Diversion of possible future threats to the Earth

In addition, NASA has already carried out test missions to prevent any rocky object in the future of great size can impact the Earth. Recently, for example, the DART impactor managed to divert the trajectory of the asteroid Didymos.

Likewise, Chinese astronomers also have plans to deflect asteroids that could be a threat, such as Bennu, which could collide with the Earth in just over 84 years.

Also read:
· NASA achieves successful crash of a spacecraft against an asteroid to divert its trajectory
· NASA delays the launch of Artemis I for the third time after the passage of storm Ian· James Webb Space Telescope reveals its first pictures of Mars