A very large, rare near-Earth asteroid called (887) Alinda will be at its closest distance to Earth for the first time in 100 years. In the coming days, it will be so close to our planet that it can even be seen with binoculars, writes IFLScience.

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The near-Earth asteroid (887) Alinda was first discovered in 1918 by German astronomer Max Wolf.. Near-Earth asteroids can be huge and reach hundreds of meters wide, or they can be very small with a width of about 2 meters. But space rocks more than 1 kilometer wide make up a small percentage of the near-Earth asteroid population. Therefore, the approximately 4.2 km wide asteroid (887) Alinda is a rare space near-Earth rock.

This object is one of the five largest asteroids that will approach Earth within 15 million km within the next 100 years.

(887) Alinda is not a potentially dangerous asteroid, and it will not fall to Earth during its closest flyby of our planet on January 9. It will be approximately 12 million km away from us, or about 32 times the distance to the Moon..

At this distance, the asteroid will reflect a lot of sunlight and will therefore be quite bright for the next 10 days. The Italian project Virtual Telescope will broadcast live on January 12 at 19:30 Kyiv time, when it will be possible to observe the flight of the asteroid in real time. On this day (887), Alinda will appear at its brightest and will still be relatively close to Earth in cosmic terms..

It is believed that this asteroid can be seen within the next few days in the night sky using binoculars. To do this, you need to look towards the constellation Gemini and Orion. An asteroid so bright, large and relatively close to Earth can only be seen once a decade.

The next time asteroid (887) Alinda will be closest to Earth at a distance of approximately 24 million km is January 25, 2087.

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