A photo from open sources PHOTO: NASA near the night of June 1 with our planet will fly a space body the size of nine cruise liners. On the night of June 1, an asteroid measuring 2.7 km will fly near the Earth. According to NASA, Celestial Body 1998 QE2 will fly at a distance of 5.8 million km from the surface of our planets that are 15 times further than the moon. Over the past 200 years this is the most close approach of the asteroid to the Earth. Scientists have already prepared for space guest visit – they intend to conduct a radar sounding an asteroid and obtain data on its composition, shape and orbit. This will help experts determine its origin and predict the future movement of the cosmic body. “1998 QE2 will be an excellent target for radar observations from Goldstone and Arecibo, and we expect to get a series of radar images high resolution on which we can see many details surface, “said astronomer Lance Benner, supervisor radar observations at the 70-meter Goldstone radio antenna (California). Asteroid nine times the size of Queen Cruise Ship Elizabeth 2, who, by the way, freely intervenes over 17 thousand human. 1998 QE2 was opened and was opened on August 19, 1998. participants in the American project to search for asteroids LINEAR. TO a word, a few years later the American Space Agency (NASA) intends to send the probe to the asteroid 1999 RQ36. The thing is, that this cosmic body poses a potential threat to Earth and may collide with it in 2182. Received data will allow to calculate how its orbit will change as a result of heating one side of the sun. Thanks to this, as astronomers hope, will be able to determine exactly how dangerous an asteroid is for our the planet. Scientists are also alarmed by the asteroid Apophis, which at the end January flew at a distance of 14.46 million km from Earth. Astronomers alarming is the fact that in 2029 this object will approach our planet at a distance of 36 thousand kilometers. When collisions of a 300-meter Apophis with the Earth the consequences will be more serious. According to scientists, the energy released in this equivalent to an explosion energy of 506 mgt of TNT.
Ivan UKHOV
NASA
