A meteor is about to fly near the earth

In the middle of the next month a meteorite will fly 6.4 million km away from the globe, a distance close enough for it to be classified as a capable " sky stone ".

Picture 1 of A meteor is about to fly near the earth
Illustration of a meteorite near the globe. (Photo: howstuffworks.com.)

AP said, Pan-Starrs PS1 telescope of the University of Hawaii, USA discovered meteorites. The telescope is located on the top of the Haleakala volcano of the Hawaiian Islands. The school's scientists named the meteorite as 2010 ST3.

According to Space, 2010 ST3 with a width of 46 m can break into many pieces in case it flies into the Earth's atmosphere. If that happens, meteorites can cause extremely strong shock waves in the air and destroy life on an area of ​​several hundred km 2 . After 88 years this meteorite will fly close to our planet again.

' 2010 ST3 has the ability to hit the earth in 2098, although the probability of that event is not great. So it is worth paying attention to fly over the earth in the middle of next month , 'said Robert Jedicke, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii.

The Pan-Starrs PS1 telescope is designed to detect meteorites capable of threatening the planet. Its main mirror has a diameter of 1.8 m. The glasses are equipped with an extremely powerful digital camera with a 1,400 megapixel resolution sensor. Scientists hope it will detect about 100,000 meteorites in the next three years. In addition Pan-Starrs PS1 also tracks 5 billion stars and 500 million galaxies. It is also capable of detecting stellar explosions.

University of Hawaii astronomers calculate that, every few thousand years, a 1.6-meter-less meteorite will hit the Earth and cause widespread destruction.