What all orbit the sun other than planets and their moons? Well, we have comets, asteroids and meteoroids. The major difference lies in their size and composition. Comets are made of ice and dust, while asteroids are composed of rocks and metals. Meteoroids are smaller pieces formed when asteroids collide each other. All these are formed along with the sun & planets and hence can be used to study the history of our solar system. They can be dangerous if one is able to slam into our Earth. Then they are called Potentially Hazardous Objects(PDO). So we did always keep an eye on them by tracking their orbits. An object falls into PDO if it is 75 lakh km or 19.5 lunar distance(the distance to the moon called lunar distance) or less from us. But what about an asteroid with mask?
Asteroids are irregularly shaped, measuring about a thousand kilometres to two or three meters. Like planets, they also move around the sun in elliptical orbits. Most of them are found in a region between Mars and Jupiter called an asteroid belt. Asteroids that move closer to Earth than the sun are called near-Earth asteroids(NEAs).
So having said all these, an NEA, as well as a potentially hazardous asteroid, named asteroid(52768) 1998 OR2, 2 km wide, is closest to the Earth at 3:25 pm(IST) on 29 April. This moves at its closest distance of 63 lakh kilometres(16 lunar distances) at 31,000km/hr. Even though it is 63 lakh kilometres from us this year, over the course of time even a slight change in its orbit can be a threat to us making it a PDO. This certainly does not pose an apparent threat to us as for now.
Asteroid 1998 OR2 is slightly spherical and rotates once in 4 hours. It needs 3 years and 8 months to orbit the sun once. It was first observed on 24 July 1998, from Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii. This is the closest flyby we get till 2027 and also the largest NEA that pass us for about 200 years. So this is a big fish for sky enthusiasts!
Due to its topological features, such as hills on one side, one of its images (given below) resembles to wearing a mask and thus becoming a perfect picture in the current COVID-19 situation. An Asteroid with mask at this time makes it looks like even the outer space is aware of what humanity is going through.
– Devika B S
Read our article on “Comet ATLAS disintegrates disappointing many“
Author
