A classified as NEO, near-Earth objects (Near Earth Object), fly to "visit", but this time at a distance of 11 million kilometers at its closest approach to Earth will be December 24 next asteroid.
Known as 163899 or 2003 SD220, this asteroid was discovered in 2003 and travels to 7.84 kilometers per second, according to the website of the NEO Program of the US space agency, NASA.
It has a diameter of between 1.1 and 2.5 kilometers and is the closest to Earth is 11 million kilometers, about 28 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
Therefore, there is no potential danger to Earth, nor was with "Great Pumpkin" (2015 TB145), the asteroid that "we visited" last November, coinciding with the feast of Halloween, according to experts consulted by Efe.
In fact, the most important of the 2003 SD220 approach is that it can provide a radar echo good enough for the American group dedicated to his study to try to determine its shape and other interesting features.
Of the more than 600,000 asteroids that you have consistency in our solar system, about 12,000 are listed as NEO.
NEO they considered if its orbit is less than 50 million kilometers from Earth, but there is another classification: Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA known as its acronym in English), closer.
These asteroids have orbits "close" -in terms astronómicos- to Earth, about eight million kilometers, and diameters of more than 100 meters.
These bodies they are made closer monitoring and impact probabilities are evaluated: the 24th does not.
There are different scales measuring the "seriousness" of the NEO / PHA, as the Turin scale (ten levels), which takes into account the size and proximity. Since work (2000), no asteroid has exceeded the level 1; the impact probability exists, but we must not be alarmist, insist the experts. EFE