On Wednesday, May 9, a large dangerous asteroid will pass by Earth

A large dangerous asteroid, most probably about 300 meters in diameter, will pass by the Earth on Wednesday, May 9. This cosmic stone, called the 2008 TZ3, will fly ancient times our planet at 10:06 UTC, staying away from it at a safe distance of about 6.5 distances, the Earth-Moon (lunar distance, LD), which is 2.5 million kilometers.

Asteroid 2008 TZ3 is a near-Earth object of the Apollo family, which was first discovered by a survey of Mount-Lemmon sky on October 6, 2008. Sky-survey of Mount-Lemmon uses a 1.52-meter Cassegrain reflector installed at the Mount Lemmon Observatory, Arizona, and USA. It is one of the most fruitful sky surveys to discover new near-Earth objects. To date, more than 50,000 minor planets have been detected with this sky survey.

According to astronomers, the asteroid 2008 TZ3 has an absolute stellar magnitude of 20.4 and a period of rotation around its own axis of 44.2 hours. This object revolves around the Sun with a period of two years, remaining at a distance of 1.59 astronomical units (1 AU is equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun) from our luminary.

On Wednesday, the 2008 TZ3 asteroid will clear past our planet at a relative speed of 9 kilometers per second. The next approach of the asteroid to the Earth is expected on May 10, 2020, when the cosmic stone will be located at a distance of 7.28 LD from our planet.