An enormous asteroid, renamed 2025 OWit is about to approach the earth in a significant way: NASA, which has recently discovered it, estimates that it will pass at a minimum distance of just 633 thousand kilometers from our planet, the smallest of the five celestial bodies that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is observing carefully as well as one of the smallest recorded in recent years.
The moment in which, passing from the constellation of the fox to that of the swan, it will reach the Perigeum is scheduled for 13:12 on Monday 28 July, a sufficient point to be able to define asteroid as “Near-Earth Object”although experts tend to remove the possibility of dangers for the earth. To initially arouse concern among enthusiasts the classification of 2025 OW as “City killer”attributed to him for its characteristics capable of devastating a metropolis. Fortunately, there is no possibility of impact, reassures NASA through the words of dr. Ian J. O’Neill, member of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:“If there was a threat, you would be contacted”reassures the expert on ABC news microphones, “We would always publish notices on our blog dedicated to planetary defense”.
2025 OW affects not only the trajectory, but also its size and the speed with which it moves. The asteroid identified by the Center for Near Earth Object Studies of the NASA has an irregular shape, between the 52 meters and the 120 maximums, or roughly the height of the Torre di Pisa in the first case and that of the Eurosky tower in the second: the medium diameter It is 67 meters, that is to say about the length reached by the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner, one of the largest planes for intercontinental flights. The celestial body moves at a significant speed, equal to 75,500 km/h, i.e. more than 20.9 km per second.
As mentioned, experts agree in saying that the asteroid will not hit our planet, and explain that it will not be possible to observe it with the naked eye: the apparent magnitude at the point closest to us on July 28 will be
+15.89, much higher than the human visual limit of +6.0. This means that only the use of astronomical tools such as high sensitivity telescopes will allow to study it and verify its passage.