Asteroid 465824 (2010 FR) to cross Earth’s orbit soon: NASA

Context:

NASA has been tracking asteroid 465824 2010 FR, which is twice as big as the Pyramid of Giza and is expected to cross the Earth’s orbit.

About:

• It is classified as a Near-Earth Object (NEO) and a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).
  • NEOs occasionally move close to the Earth as they orbit the Sun.
    • NASA defines NEOs as comets and asteroids nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.
    • These objects are composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles.

• It is categorized as an Apollo-class Asteroid
• 2010 FR orbits the sun every 440 days (1.20 years), coming as close as 0.72 AU and reaching as far as 1.55 AU from the sun.

What are Asteroids?

• Asteroids are rocky objects that orbit the Sun, much smaller than planets. They are also called minor planets.
• Asteroids are named by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
• Most such objects can be found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which is estimated to contain somewhere between 1.1-1.9 million asteroids.
  • The explanation for the concentration of asteroids in this belt comes from the formation of Jupiter, whose gravity brought an end to the formation of any planetary bodies in this region, as a result of which the smaller bodies kept colliding with each other, fragmenting into asteroids.
• Trojans: Other than those found in the main asteroid belt, asteroids can be classified into trojans, which are asteroids that share an orbit with a larger planet.