Small asteroid passing near Earth

Shaaban Bilal (Cairo)
A newly discovered small asteroid passes near the planet at a speed of 9.7 kilometers per second, and there is no danger of it colliding with our planet, according to the Jeddah Astronomical Society.
The Jeddah Astronomical Society explained that the asteroid is called “2022 KO3” and has a diameter of 08 meters, the size of a bus, indicating that the closest distance from Earth will be at 8:32 pm Mecca time, which is the closest distance during the next ten years, and it cannot be seen with the naked eye because of its low apparent brightness. .
She pointed out that this asteroid is among the list of near-Earth objects, which includes any asteroid whose orbit intersects with the orbit of the Earth, and these asteroids are closely monitored, and thanks to high-accuracy observations and celestial mechanical calculations, their orbit is usually known with a high level of accuracy.
This asteroid is much smaller than the asteroid that penetrated the sky of Russia in February 2013, which reached a diameter of 20 meters and disintegrated at a low altitude, releasing a very high energy, which caused a shock wave in the sky that shattered the glass of buildings and human injuries due to flying glass and the arrival of small pieces of the remains of those Space rock to the surface of the Earth in the form of meteorites.
He stressed that if this asteroid collides with Earth, it will disintegrate above the Earth’s atmosphere and will not cause a “disaster at the level of extinction”, and will not have a serious impact on the safety of the Earth’s inhabitants, despite the fact that the asteroid is interesting.
The Jeddah Astronomical Society stated that small asteroids approaching Earth are likely to be affected by our planet’s gravity, an effect called “gravity assist” and used by space agencies to help propel spacecraft to different places in our solar system.