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7335 (1989 JA) Discovered on May 1st 1989 by Eleanor Helin from the Palomar Observatory (California), this asteroid is rightfully among the more than 29 thousand "potentially dangerous" objects that NASA's Cneos follows every year. Not so much for its size (which, however, are considerable, so much so that it is 99% larger than the other potentially dangerous asteroids known) but for its orbit, which in 2022 will bring it a little closer to our planet, less than the threshold of 48 million kilometers of distance with which potentially dangerous objects are defined.
Of 7335 (1989 JA) approximately the dimensions (1.8 kilometers in diameter, in fact) and the cruising speed are known ( 76 thousand kilometers per hour). It is a rocky asteroid and falls (along with about 15 thousand other steroids) in the Apollo asteroid class, so called because they orbit the Sun and periodically cross the orbit of the Earth.
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The next close passage of 7335 (1989 JA) is scheduled for June 23, 2055, when it will be at an even greater distance from Earth, about 70 times that of the Moon.
How to spot asteroid 7335 Given its size, asteroid 7335 is currently visible even with small telescopes (diameter 150 mm), especially from the southern hemisphere.
But for all those who wish to follow his close passage to the Earth on May 27th, the Virtual Telescope Project, in collaboration with Telescope Live, has organized two live streams: one from Chile at 1:00 Italian time ( here) and one from Australia at 15:00 Italian (here). The minimum distance from the Earth will be touched precisely at 4:26 pm Italian time.
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