While everyone was busy presenting the new iPhones, and the aerospace agency NASA was preparing for the launch of its OSIRIS-ReX spacecraft, one uninvited guest visited Earth. The small and very recently discovered asteroid 2016 RB1 missed our planet at a very close distance of about 38,500 kilometers, in fact, outside the orbit of many communication satellites. Above, you can see a diagram of the orbit of asteroid 2016 RB1 (in blue) and its approach to Earth on September 7.
The asteroid passed Earth at 1:28 pm ET. Interestingly, it was discovered only two days earlier, on September 5, using the telescope of the Mount Lemmon Observatory (USA). Preliminary calculations indicate that the size of the stone is somewhere between 7.3 and 16 meters. In other words, it is slightly smaller than the Chelyabinsk Meteorite (its diameter was estimated at 17 meters), which exploded over Russian territory in 2013.
Below you can see a comparative graph of the size of asteroid 2016 RB1 with other near-Earth objects and terrestrial structures.
Interestingly, only a few people were able to see the asteroid, including scientists from the Virtual Telescope Project and the Remanzacco Observatory. This is the third asteroid discovered in September 2016, whose path lies between the Earth and the Moon.
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK
