Asteroid threat looms over Earth today, says NASA

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Asteroid flybys have been a common theme these past few months with more than 35 asteroids passing by Earth closely in the months of August and September. It seems like October is all set to surpass that figure as 35 space rocks have already sped past the planet. Although most of these asteroids pass by Earth relatively safely, some of them do come too close for comfort as did one just the other day when it came almost as close the moon, they could cause major damage on the planet if these space rocks deviated from their trajectory. NASA has now warned that a hazardous asteroid is hurtling towards Earth today.

NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office has red-flagged an asteroid named Asteroid 2022 UU1 due to its extremely close approach to the planet. The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth today, October 26 at a distance of 4.1 million kilometers per hour. It is already on its way towards the planet travelling at a speed of nearly 25848 kilometers per hour!

According to the-sky.org, the Asteroid 2022 UU1 belongs to the Amor group of asteroids. It was discovered as recently as on October 18. This asteroid takes 1372 days to complete one trip around the Sun during which its maximum distance from the Sun is 571 million kilometers and nearest distance is 152 million kilometers.

In research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, MIT scientists have developed a new method to study the internal structure of asteroids based on how its spin changes when it makes a close approach with a huge celestial object, like a planet. This will help in understanding the internal structure of the asteroid as well as the weight distribution, which could help in future DART Missions.

The team of MIT