301-foot Asteroid 2023 FY13 rushing towards Earth, says NASA; speeding at a scary 42923 kmph

Asteroid 2023 FY13 is on way and it is set to have a close encounter with Earth. Apart from tracking asteroids to get early warning about those that pose a threat to earth, scientists also study them to learn more about the early solar system and the conditions that existed when the planets were forming. These asteroids can not only provide valuable resources such as water, metals, and other minerals. Asteroids vary in the composition of their core materials. Some asteroids are made up of clay and silicate, while others are made up of silicate materials and nickel-iron, according to NASA.

Asteroids often make close flybys to Earth, but generally burn up on hitting the atmosphere or narrowly miss the planet. NASA has now warned that another asteroid is on its way towards Earth.

Asteroid 2023 FY13 details

NASA has revealed that the asteroid, given the designation of Asteroid 2023 FY13, will make its closest approach to Earth on March 9, at a distance of 7 million kilometers. The 301-foot asteroid is gigantic, making it almost as big as an aircraft!

It is speeding towards Earth at 42923 kilometers per hour. This space rock belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, as per NASA.

NASA tracks asteroids using a combination of ground-based and space-based telescopes. The NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) scans the night sky for moving objects and reports any potential asteroid detections, while some space-based observatories use infrared sensors to detect asteroids and their characteristics.

How is an Asteroid’s orbit Calculated?

An asteroid’s orbit is computed by finding the elliptical path about the sun that best fits the available observations of the object using various space and ground-based telescopes such as NASA’s NEOWISE telescope and its brand-new Sentry II algorithm. That is, the object’s computed path about the sun is adjusted until the predictions of where the asteroid should have appeared in the sky at several observed times match the positions where the object was observed to be at those same time.