By the Earth suddenly flying a large asteroid

April 15 through the system Earth — Moon, flew by asteroid relatively large size. Distance was around 192 200 km from our planet.

The asteroid in 2018 GE3 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey during its approach to Earth on April 14. A few hours later, Amateur astronomer Michael jäger of Austria shot a video in which a celestial body glides through the southern part of the constellation of the Snake. Yeager noted that, according to available data, in 2018 GE3 is the largest known asteroid in the entire history of observations, which flies so close to the Earth. The astronomer added that in the course of his observations the asteroid was shining like a star 13th magnitude.

NASA noted that, based on the intensity of reflected sunlight, the width of a celestial body should be between 48 to 110 meters. This puts it on par with the 60-meter Tunguska meteorite that fell in Siberia in 1908. You can also remember Chelyabinsk meteorite — a 20-metre asteroid exploded in the atmosphere on 15 February 2013. To observers it looked like a fireball in the sky and was brighter than the sun. 2018 GE3 can be 5-6 times wider than a celestial body.

If GE3 2018 fell to the Ground, the consequence would be regional and not global damage, besides he could disintegrate in the atmosphere before reaching the surface. However, this asteroid can be called a milestone, because it illustrates that even more celestial objects can still catch us by surprise — it was discovered less than a day before closest approach with the planet. On the basis of available short-term observations, we can assume that the 2018 GE3 is on an elliptical orbit that stretches from the asteroid belt into the inner Solar system. Every 2.5 years, the asteroid crosses the orbit of mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, although not necessarily closer to the actual planets.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»