View Single Post
Heel n Toe Heel n Toe is offline
Run smooth, run fast
 
Heel n Toe's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 13,450
Asteroid to pass within 17,200 miles on 2/15

That's pretty close.

Asteroid to Give Earth Record-Setting Close Shave on Feb. 15

An asteroid half the size of a football field will give Earth the ultimate close shave this month, passing closer than many satellites when it whizzes by, but it won't hit the planet, NASA scientists say.

The asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly by Earth on Feb. 15 and zip within 17,200 miles (27, 680 kilometers) of the planet during the cosmic close encounter. The asteroid will approach much closer to Earth than the moon, and well inside the paths of navigation and communications satellites.

"This is a record-setting close approach," Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's asteroid-tracking program, said in a statement. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth."

More: Asteroid to Give Earth Record-Setting Close Shave on Feb. 15 - Yahoo! News
__________________
- John
"We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline."
Old 02-02-2013, 08:59 PM
  Pelican Parts Catalog | Tech Articles | Promos & Specials    Reply With Quote #1 (permalink)