Asteroid zooming past Earth on Saturday visible to stargazers

PARIS: A large asteroid that will zoom harmlessly past Earth on Saturday will be visible to stargazers using a small telescope or large binoculars, the European Space Agency announced Wednesday.

The asteroid will come within 2,560,000 kilometres of Earth at 1114 GMT on Saturday, which is more than six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Called (152637) 1997 NC1, the asteroid will be speeding along at nearly nine kilometres a second, posing no threat to Earth as any chance of an impact has been ruled out.

Discovered in 1997, the asteroid is estimated to be between 750 and 1,650 metres wide, according to calculations based on how much sunlight it reflects.

However other estimates suggest it could be smaller, the ESA said in a statement.

“A close approach to Earth by an object this size only occurs every few years, although this time the bright nearby Moon might impede its observability at closest approach,” Juan Luis Cano of the ESA’s Planetary Defence Office said in a statement.

For stargazers with telescopes or binoculars, the asteroid will be visible in parts of the Northern Hemisphere as it approaches, almost everywhere as it speeds past Earth, and only from the Southern Hemisphere as it departs.

But this depends if people are in areas of the world where the sky is dark enough as it passes.