2021 UA1 was a small asteroid that happened to pass over Earth undetected with a distance much closer to our planet than the moon and other space satellites.
2021 UA1 Flyby Undetected
An asteroid recently passed Earth just this week. The cosmic body hovered just 3,000 kilometers above the face of our planet, but it seems that no experts were able to gather the readings and predict the trajectory until it passed through the skies of Antarctica. NASA admitted that they did not see the asteroid coming, too. The spatial exhibit was called the 2021 UA1, and was observed last Sunday.
Antarctica's guest asteroid got roamed unknowingly above the massive ice sheet. But compared to the past known asteroids that visited Earth, the 2021 UA1 was not as massive as expected. The size recorded from the asteroid's physical structure measured to about 2 meters. Republic World reported that even though it is little, the speed and other movements factors of 2021 UA1 could bring minimal damage to any planet that it collides with. The size alone could piece and burn the atmosphere for a short amount of time. The main concern that experts raise about the passing of 2021 UA1 is not the potential damage it could have brought, but the fact that no astronomy experts and even observatories were able to notice it charging at our planet's backyard.
People are grateful that the 2021 UA1 did not inflict any impact or irreparable damages despite flying so close to Earth undetected. Due to the event, the asteroid was considered as the third closest asteroid to have passed Earth's premises in astronomical history without recorded impacts to the planet. Alongside the 2021 UA1 are the daredevil asteroids 2020 QG and the 2020 VT4, recorded in August and November of 2020 respectively.
Skimmed Past Earth Within 3,000 Kilometers
2021 UA1 hovered 3,000 kilometers from Earth. The distance identified from the event was significantly closer than the space between our planet and the moon, which measures 384,400 kilometers apart. Thankfully, the asteroid is not as close as the International Space Station's distance of 408 kilometers, but it surpassed some of the collective satellites in space that have a distance of 35,000 kilometers away from Earth.
A possible theory behind 2021 UA1 flyby being undetected was the asteroid's hidden trajectory. According to a statement by NASA, the direction of where the 2021 UA1 came from is considered a blind spot. The asteroid is propelled from the inner solar system instead of charging towards Earth and the sun, and this rarely happens in observations. The reason why there is a blindspot in the asteroid examinations is that the visibility from the inner solar system is too low due to the sun's glare emissions. Any bodies could be challenging to observe for ground-based devices during the daytime, but the best chance to view the limited appearance of these objects is during twilight, in which the planets Mercury and Venus also appears in the sky.
The worries from the 2021 UA1 event and the likes will be over once NASA and the Applied Physics Laboratory launch the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART mission this November for a comprehensive examination and prediction of asteroids and their corresponding effects.
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