| Another one? Golly. |
"One of the largest asteroids of the year, 2025 FA22, will pass tomorrow, September 18, at a distance slightly greater than the diameter of the lunar orbit from Earth, approaching the planet at its closest point around 10:00 Moscow time, " the laboratory's website states.
According to scientists, the average size of the celestial body is 166 meters, 290 meters in length, and its mass is approximately 1,000 times greater than that of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. The probability of this asteroid colliding with Earth is estimated at a negligible fraction of a percent, and currently the chances of such an eventuality are zero, as the celestial body's trajectory guarantees it will miss both the Earth and the Moon.
The laboratory clarified that this asteroid could be the largest to fly past Earth at a distance of less than 1 million km in 2025, despite the fact that meteorites of such size have never fallen on the planet in modern human history.
"All the historical impacts we've heard about involve bodies much smaller. The most famous meteorite crater in history, the Arizona impact crater, is the impact of an asteroid with a mass approximately 10 to 100 times smaller," the scientists noted, adding that the asteroid's transit would be virtually impossible to observe with amateur skywatchers.