NASA: asteroid four times higher than the Eiffel Tower will fly close to Earth in March
Photo: Global Look Press
An asteroid named 138971 (2001 CB21) will approach Earth in March, writes Newsweek with reference to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The diameter of a large cosmic body, according to astronomers, is about 1.3 kilometers or 4265 feet. It is four times higher than the Eiffel Tower. It is expected that the asteroid will fly near the planet around 11:00 Moscow time on March 4. It is moving at a speed of more than 43 thousand kilometers per hour, scientists have warned.
NASA has identified it as “potentially dangerous.” At the same time, scientists are confident that it will not collide with the Earth in the foreseeable future. “The asteroid will be more than three million miles away at the nearest point, which is more than ten times farther from us than the Moon,” the experts stressed.
For the first time, 2001 CB21 was discovered by Gianluca Masi, an astronomer from the Virtual Telescope project in Italy. He took a picture of it using a ground-based telescope when the asteroid was at a distance of more than 34.6 million kilometers from Earth.
Earlier, an international group of astronomers confirmed the existence of the second known Trojan asteroid 2020 XL5 near Earth.
