In the first days of March, a newly discovered giant asteroid will visit us.
According to astronomers, the asteroid VR12 2017 will pass near our planet on the night of 6 to 7 March. At the moment of maximum convergence, the distance from the asteroid to the Earth will be 3.76 lunar-earth distance. Thus, the asteroid will be an excellent target for observation using radars and telescopes, including small amateur telescopes. The distance to which the asteroid approaches the Earth is quite safe.
The diameter of the asteroid can range from 250 to 280 meters, which makes it a very large near-Earth object. For comparison, the cosmic rock that exploded in the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk five years ago was only 20 meters in size.
In order to understand what damage an asteroid of this size can provoke, it is worthwhile to say that an asteroid with a diameter of 46 meters when it falls to the surface of the Earth forms a crater with a diameter of 1.2 kilometers.
