Astronomers Identify One Asteroid As Hazardous After Mapping Near-Earth Objects’ Path for the Next 1,000 Years

Astronomers continue to study asteroids to prepare for future collisions. According to a new report, there's only one threat in the next 1,000 years.

Asteroid 7482 Will Spend A Large Amount of Time Getting Close to Earth

It is as inevitable as the Sun rising and the tides shifting that another huge space rock will hit the planet one day. It has occurred and will continue to occur for billions of years past and billions of years to come.

The astronomers looked at the most direct collision with Earth. They focused on how this closest distance alters over thousands and centuries. To accomplish this, they ran several simulations that sketched out as many potential orbital pathways as possible, considering the uncertainty in the near-Earth Objects (NEOs) present orbital positions and velocities, ScienceAlert reported.

One NEO in particular, Asteroid 7482, was singled out by scientists as dangerous. For the next millennium, this asteroid will spend a significant amount of time close to the Earth.

Even if it doesn't guarantee that it will hit Earth, it does indicate that this rock has the greatest likelihood of colliding with it within the next thousand years.

Another asteroid highlighted by the researchers is Asteroid 143651, whose orbit is so erratic that it is hard to forecast its precise location for over a few decades. Therefore, based on the current understanding of its position and velocity, astronomers cannot declare with certainty if it poses any threat at all.

The astronomers found 28 candidates with a non-zero chance of a "deep encounter."

What's Asteroid 7482?

Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) is a mid-sized asteroid whose orbit crosses the orbit of Earth. Its size is comparable to Golden Gate Bridge, with a 1.05-kilometer diameter, making it larger than 99% of space rocks.

It is categorized as Apollo-class Asteroid, according to Space Reference. NASA JPL has classified 1994 PC1 as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid" due to its predicted close pass(es) with Earth.

1994 PC1 orbits the Sun every 572 days (1.57 years), coming as close as 0.90 AU and reaching as far as 1.79 AU from the Sun. It completes a rotation on its axis every 2.60 hours.

Why Map The Path Of The Asteroids?

So far, humanity has been fortunate because we haven't had to deal with such a terrible threat. But if we want to live on this planet for a long time, we must accept that there will be dangerous asteroids and learn to prepare for them.

Astronomers have been tracking NEOs because of this. The skies are still being watched over by organizations all around the world. They are cataloging and mapping all NEOs, or near-Earth objects, that might be dangerous.

Thankfully, there are fewer of the larger rocks, which offer a greater concern. We also have trustworthy maps of almost all potentially dangerous asteroids larger than a kilometer, even though our census of dangerous NEOs is far from complete.

This is helpful because kilometer-scale asteroids cannot only destroy entire towns but also hurt the environment significantly all around the world.

A group of astronomers has calculated the orbits of these massive NEOs over the next millennium to determine the risk they represent. According to their study, none of these kilometer-scale NEOs will seriously threaten us in the ensuing century.

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