ESA removes this dangerous space rock from asteroid risk list

The European Space Agency's asteroid team working with experts at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have officially removed ‘2021 QM1’ from their asteroid risk list. The threatening space rock was removed from ESA's risk list following skilled observations and analysis with one of the most sensitive telescopes in the world.

ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) captured 2021 QM1 which for months topped risk lists around the globe. With new observations, the asteroid's path was refined, ruling out an Earth impact in 2052, which means the riskiest asteroid known to humankind in the last year will not strike Earth - at least not for the next century.

Discovered on 28 August 2021, the 50-meter asteroid lingered at the top of risk lists around the globe for months, with a real chance of impacting Earth on 2 April 2052.

ESA says just as the risk appeared to be increasing, an (im)perfect cosmic alignment occurred: the asteroid's path brought it closer to the Sun as seen from Earth, and for months it became impossible to see due to our star's brilliant glare.

"We just had to wait. But to cap things off, we knew that 2021 QM1 was also moving away from Earth in its current orbit – meaning by the time it passed out of the Sun's glare, it could be too faint to detect," said Marco Micheli, Astronomer at ESA's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC).

2052 impact ruled out as ESA counts down to @AsteroidDay 👉https://t.co/qOy1KKLHDl#RiskiestAsteroid🪨#AnotherOneBitesTheDust❌📸Busy star field and #2021QM1's expected path, @ESO's VLT/O.Hainaut pic.twitter.com/OMSwy3E9Pr

— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) June 29, 2022

ESA's Risk List is a catalogue of all near-Earth objects (NEOs) for which a non-zero impact probability has been computed. While 2021 QM1 has been removed from the list, another 1377 remain on the list.