"NASA": A new asteroid passed along the Earth
A three to six-meter-long asteroid passed 2,950 kilometers from Earth on Sunday, according to the US Space Agency (NASA), which indicated that it is the closest distance to such an object observed near Earth.
Even if it collided with the Earth, the asteroid "2020 Kyuji" was not expected to cause damage, but its disintegration in the atmosphere would have formed a fireball in the sky, as NASA's Jet Propalacht Laboratory said in a statement.
The asteroid was observed six hours after its passage by the "Zwicky Transient Facility" telescope at the Palomar Observatory at Caltech University in California in the form of a long, shining line in the sky.
"NASA" explained that asteroids of this size approach the Earth a few times a year, but it is difficult to observe them unless they are heading directly towards the Earth.
And the explosion of these asteroids can be detected in the atmosphere, as happened in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. At that time, an object explosion of about 20 meters shattered glass kilometers away, and injured about 1000 people.
"It was very interesting to see a small asteroid at this very close distance, because we were able to see the Earth's gravity affect its path," said Paul Choudas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA.
According to the calculations of the NASA laboratory, the asteroid deflected 45 degrees due to the planet Earth.