Asteroid 2021 QM1 will not impact Earth

The asteroid named ‘2021 QM1’, which was considered the most dangerous for humanity, will not impact Earth on April 2, 2052. The possibility was ruled out by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Southern Observatory.

The space rock, with an estimated diameter of between 35 and 80 meters, was initially discovered on August 28, 2021 by the Mount Lemmon Observatory, located north of Tucson, Arizona, in USA. Since then, routine follow-up observations from telescopes around the world have begun to warn of the risk of a coalition between the asteroid and Earth in 2052.

In fact, ESA’s Head of Planetary Defense, Richard Moissl, stated at the time that “We could see its future paths around the Sun, and in 2052 it could come dangerously close to Earth. The more the asteroid was observed, the greater the risk.” After these checks, the asteroid’s trajectory brought it closer to the Sun as seen from Earth. For months it became impossible to see due to the bright glare of our star.

The asteroid ‘2021 QM1’ does not pose a risk to Earth

As soon as the 50 meter asteroid moved away from the sunlight, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory was prepared and ready to resume tracking.

During the night of May 24, the telescope took a series of new images, which yielded a positive detection. They determined that ‘2021 QM1’ was 250 million times fainter than the faintest stars visible to the naked eye from a dark spot.

That’s the way it is, this space rock will not impact the earth at least for the next century. Observations also indicate that it is an Apollo-class asteroid, which means that its orbit around the Sun overlaps with the orbit of our planet.

Therefore, the ‘2021 QM1’ was removed from the ESA risk list, in which 1,377 objects are counted.

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Reference article: https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/5025432/0/el-asteroid-most-dangerous-for-humanity-will-not-hit-the-earth-in-2052-european-space-agency/