DUSHANBE, 29.04.2020. (NIAT Khovar) – Today at 15:00 local time, an asteroid will fly past Earth at a distance of more than 6 million km.

Since April 20, astronomical observations have been conducted in Tajikistan. There are observatories and telescopes, as well as experience in observing such potentially dangerous asteroids for this purpose, reported the Director of Astrophysics Institute of the Tajik National Academy of Sciences Gulchehra Kohirova.

“In just a few hours, an asteroid will approach the Earth, which moves in interplanetary space at a relative speed of 9km/s,” said Kohirova.

Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) was discovered on July 25, 1998 at the astronomical observatory in Hawaii in the United States.

With the first pictures and calculations, the analysis revealed that it can approach close to Earth.

The size of the asteroid is estimated to be anywhere from 2-4 km. The size of the cosmic body that broke into the Earth’s atmosphere in the Chelyabinsk region was 20 meters. Due to its close distance to Earth and its size, the object was classified as a potentially dangerous asteroid. These are considerable objects with dimensions exceeding 100 meters and which are relatively close to Earth, at distances starting from 7.5 million km or less.

This asteroid’s orbit does not cross the Earth’s orbit at all, since it belongs to the asteroids of the Amur group, whose orbits are located outside the Earth’s orbit. In addition, 6 million km is considered a relatively large distance and a collision with Earth is almost impossible. Therefore, the threat of the asteroid to Earth is completely insignificant and its collision with the Earth is excluded.

The asteroid asteroid that came close to Earth was on March 12, 2009 at a distance of 27 million km, the next approach will take place on May 18, 2031 at a distance of 19.5 million km.