The asteroid passed by surprise yesterday and nobody saw it coming, being detected only when it was already upon us.
The asteroid was the size of a truck and flew just 7,000 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean, making it one of the closest objects to pass our world without impacting the atmosphere.
Previously unknown to astronomers, 2020 JJ – as he was christened on Monday – was discovered using the Lemmon Survey in Arizona, while it was already at its closest point to Earth.
NASA has an online database of close-ups of asteroids and other near-Earth objects (NEOs) dating back to 1900.
2020 JJ has entered the TOP 10 by becoming the sixth closest ever recorded.
It should be noted that this TOP 10 is integrated, in its entirety, by objects that have ventured close to our world since 2004.
This, of course, does not mean that asteroids have started attacking us in the 21st century, but rather that detection technology is getting better and better at spotting smaller, closer bodies.
2020 JJ is estimated to be approximately 6 meters in size, making it almost negligible compared to the asteroid 1998 OR2, with a size close to 2 kilometers and that visited us on April 29.
Fortunately, the latter passed more than 6 million kilometers from Earth.
This means that if 2020 JJ hit our planet, most of it would probably have disintegrated in the atmosphere.
In other words, it did not represent any kind of existential threat.
However, if it had moved a little farther, it could potentially hit one of the orbiting satellites — which, if it had been a communication one, would have caused great chaos in the confined and hyperconnected population of the pandemic.
It is for all this that it is always worth keeping a watchful eye in space.
Also this week, you can watch the skies and watch the annual meteor shower Eta Aquarids, the fragments left behind by Halley’s Comet, as well as the last supermoon of the year.
