It is about 1 kilometer in diameter and rushes at more than 19.56 km per second: a near-Earth asteroid will pass close to our Earth on Tuesday, January 18.
It is at 9:51 p.m. Paris time this Tuesday that 1994 PC1 will approach our planet. NASA considers the asteroid to be “potentially dangerous” due to its size and trajectory.
If it were to strike the surface of the Earth, the damage could be considerable, whether or not it hits an inhabited area. It is estimated that its trajectory will make it pass at a distance of 1.93 million kilometers from us, five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The orbit of the asteroid has been known for a long time, we know that it should not hit our planet, but at this speed any element capable of deflecting its trajectory could be a game-changer, and we currently have no countermeasures. -measure.
This is why NASA launched the DART project in November, which aims to modify the trajectory of an asteroid.