Clarifying: Indian Schoolgirls discover Asteroid

[derrick06]

Short clarification here (though it may seem redundant) because of posts that are inaccurate on social media based on a recent headline of an article from CNN (available below), which describes two Indian School girls who discovered a new Asteroid ( HLV2514 ). It's not on a collision course with Earth! They found it while taking part in a student program with Space India and NASA using imagery from an advanced telescope based in Hawaii.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/india/india-schoolgirl-asteroid-intl-scli-scn/index.html

" Aakash Dwivedi, senior educator and astronomer at Space India, told CNN that students across India were taught how to spot the celestial bodies using software which analyzes images collected by NASA's PAN Star telescope. Students then searched for moving objects in the pictures.

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A simple read of the original article posted above shows that this asteroid is not on a collision course with Earth but rather it will eventually approach Earth's outlying area like plenty of other Near Earth Objects have before. It wont be close for a million years! Even then it will still be in all practical senses plenty of distance away from Earth and no threat anyways.

" Dwivedi explained that the asteroid is currently close to the orbit of Mars -- but in 1 million years, it will change its orbit and move closer to Earth, although it will still be at a distance of more than 10 times the distance which exists between the Earth and the Moon. "

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So there it is. Always read the original article and never trust copycat sites or random posts that change the context. Just thought i'd share since I hate misinformation on space and astronomy because I think the subject is really cool and fear mongering for the sake of views online spreads "cosmophobia"