The asteroid Tutatis approaches Earth on December 12

Today 12/12/12, a giant and irregular peanut-shaped asteroid will approach the Earth and will be closely observed by astronomers from all over the world. It is called Tutatis in honor of the Gallic god of war, measures 4.46 kilometers long and 2.4 kilometers wide, and, although it does not represent any danger, its passage 6.9 million kilometers away -more than 18 times the separation between the Earth and the Moon – provides an opportunity for astronomers to gather new information about the origins of the solar system .

Asteroid 4179 Tutatis was discovered by Christian Pollas in Caussols (France) in January 1989 and classified as a "near-Earth object" (NEO). Since then it has approached our planet every four years, and has been studied with the help of radars and optical and infrared instruments. Thus it has been found that it rotates on its longest axis every 7.3 days, for example.

In this new approach to the Earth it will be monitored by the radar of the Goldstone observatory and by the radio telescopes of the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA), among other instruments.