The little asteroid 2025 OWjust discovered, will be the protagonist tomorrow July 28th of one of the asteroidal passages closest to the land of recent years, when at 13:52 Italian the minor body of the solar system – of the estimated medium diameter of 67 meters10 meters more than the Torre di Pisa – will reach a distance of 633,092 kmabout twice the distance between the earth and the moon. When it comes to close passages with an asteroid, especially when you read everywhere titles such as “the Earth will touch”, there is always a little fear, as has happened in recent months with the case of the Asteroid 2024 YR4 and at the end of last year with the Apophis Asteroid. However, there is no reason to worry: as NASA also confirms, 2025 OW will pass through a distance of total safety and There is no risk of impact with the earth.
According to the reference portal Theskylivethat of July 28 will be the closer step of this asteroid to Earth in the next 10 years (The celestial body “will come back to visit us” in fact every year).
Although 633,000 km are definitely few in astronomical terms (the close passages of bodies of this dimensions are typically a few million km), we are still talking about a remarkable distance especially for a celestial body just a few tens of meters wide. Therefore 2025 OW it will not even be remotely visible to the naked eye: the forecasts speak of a magnitude 17 In the moment of maximum approach: translated into not technical terms, we are talking about a brightness over 25,000 times lower to that detectable by the human eye in a night sky completely devoid of light pollution (roughly corresponding to magnitude 6). The only way to be able to immortalize it is therefore with considerable telescopes and long exposure photographs.
