An asteroid 1.8 km in diameter “grazed” the Earth last night
The Apollo-class asteroid 7335 (1989 JA) is what is undoubtedly called a “killer” of worlds. With its diameter of approximately 1.8 km, this space monster of monumental dimensions would be more than enough to reiterate the disaster scenario of Chicxulub and the near-Earth object that wiped the dinosaurs off the face of the Earth 65 million years ago. years.
7335 (1989 JA) “grazed” the Earth on the night of Friday May 27 to Saturday May 28, and almost no one knew anything about it. It must be said that the asteroid did not really pass very close to the Earth: on an astronomical scale, the four million kilometers that separated 7335 (1989 JA) from our Earth may not be much, but it still represents 10 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.
This behemoth discovered in 1989 will be the largest asteroid to pass near Earth this year. We can only rejoice at this since the next “near” passage is now scheduled for 2055; its distance from the Earth will then be 7 times greater than yesterday evening.
Near-Earth cruisers that could one day put an end to humanity are of course closely watched. Today there are more than 2,000 of them, and the European and American space agencies are working together to find a way to divert the mad race of these monsters, “just in case…”. As a result of this effort, the DART mission will attempt this fall to divert the course of the small asteroid Dimorphos, the latter serving as a test target.
