Wednesday, March 4, 2009

A Close Call

Last night while we slept, an asteroid zoomed by within 48,000 thousand miles of earth.

That's just twice the distance of some communications satellites, and about a fifth of the way to the moon.

Its size is estimated to be about the same as the one that blasted Siberia in the Tunguska Event back in 1908.

That's scary enough. But here's something more to keep you away tonight: that asteroid is just one of over 6,000 near earth objects. Of these 769 are asteroids with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer or larger. Also, 1028 of these NEOs have been classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).

Watch the skies.

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