Science / Asteroid 2021 UA1 Passed Through Skies of Antarctica Undetected

Washington: Scientists keep a constant eye to find out the dangers of near-Earth objects, but recently a refrigerator-sized asteroid came within 3000 km of Earth and scientists Didn't even know about it. Asteroid 2021 UA1 is the third closest asteroid to pass close to Earth.

Scientists could not find out because of this

On Sunday, this asteroid passed over Antarctica at a higher altitude than the International Space Station. Although scientists estimate that its height will be less than the communication satellites that orbit the Earth.

Giving this information, astronomer Tony Dunn said that the diameter of this asteroid is only two meters, which means that if it came close to our planet, it would have burned up in our atmosphere. This asteroid was so surprising because, it was behind the Sun. It was coming towards the earth during the day. This is the reason that it could not be detected before coming closest.

Asteroids came very close twice

Only two asteroids have come very close in Earth's history. One of these asteroids 2020 QG passed just 1,830 miles over the southern Indian Ocean. Although its size was so small that it did not pose any threat to the Earth. The second asteroid 2020 VT4 passed a few hundred miles from Earth in November last year.

According to scientists, asteroids are too small to harm the Earth and scientists are preparing to deal with the threat of a large asteroid.

NASA's mission

The American space agency NASA is constantly trying to understand the asteroid. NASA's 'Psyche Mission' and 'Dart Mission' are about this. Under NASA's Dart mission, the spacecraft will rapidly collide with and impact an asteroid. The name of this mission of NASA is DART i.e. Double Asteroid Redirection Test.