Asteroid: Too close not to report? - March 05, 2009
An asteroid made a 'close call' with the Earth on Monday, say the BBC and the Associated Press. But don't let the reports make you sweat too much -- the rock was still some 72,000 kilometers away at its closest point. That's about a fifth of the distance to the moon.
The asteroid, called 2009 DD45, was roughly 30 meters in diameter, which, the reports were sure to note, is about the size of the thing that blew up over Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs. But really, these 'near misses' happen fairly frequently -- in fact, according to Jet Propulsion Lab's catalog, an asteroid is supposed to zip past at a moon distance tomorrow. Watch out!
Comments
Of course as Alan Harris showed us last year, your chance of dying from such an event is roughly 1 in 720,000. Another cool way to watch the skies? check out this twitter feed.
Posted by: Brendan Maher | March 5, 2009 11:13 PM