HIGHLIGHTS 

The photograph was posted on the Virtual Telescope Project's website.

The asteroid appears as a little white dot with an arrow pointing to it.

It was obtained by a robotic telescope during a 420-second exposure.

WHY IN NEWS 

A massive asteroid with a diameter of up to 1.3 kilometres is coming our way and will pass near by next month. The possibly dangerous asteroid 138971 (2001 CB21) will pass within 4.5 million kilometres of Earth. At its closest approach, the asteroid will be around 13 times the typical lunar distance, according to astronomers. The heavenly object, on the other hand, will be travelling at a breathtaking speed of almost 26,800 miles per hour. On March 4th, about 3:00 a.m. ET, a near encounter will occur (1:30pm IST). On January 30, an astronomer from Italy's Virtual Telescope Project caught a picture of the asteroid speeding towards us. The astronomer Gianluca Masi discovered the asteroid with an Earth-based telescope while it was around 35 million kilometres distant.

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The asteroid may be seen as a little white dot indicated by an arrow in the middle of the image released on the Virtual Telescope Project's website. It was shot remotely with the 'Elena,' a robotic telescope unit, during a single 420-second exposure. The asteroid completes a circle around the Sun every 384 days, which is slightly longer than the time it takes Earth to go around the Sun. The fact that the asteroid is classified as 'possibly dangerous' does not indicate it will strike us. It can get quite near to humans, which suggests it is capable of doing so. The size of the asteroid is also taken into account while classifying it. Another asteroid passed pretty near to Earth last month. It was over 1 kilometre wide and flew past Earth on January 18. It was named 7482 (1994 PC1) and was over 1 kilometre wide.

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While no threat of an asteroid crash has been discovered thus far, NASA is attempting to develop the capabilities to deal with such a circumstance in the future. It has launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which will crash a spaceship against an asteroid to prod it to alter its course. The collapse isn't projected to happen until September or October of 2022.