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Giant Asteroid to Pass Between Earth, Moon

  •   Tue, Nov 08 2011 12:01:57 PM

Moscow, Nov 8 (IANS/RIA Novosti): A 400-metre-wide asteroid will Tuesday fly past earth, closer to it than the moon's orbit.

The asteroid will pose no threat to Earth, NASA says. It will not be visible without a telescope.

NASA scientists have been tracking the asteroid, named 2005 YU55, since Friday.

"The asteroid 2005 YU55 cannot hit Earth, at least over the interval that we can compute the motion reliably - which extends for several hundred years," said Lance Benner, the asteroid's principal researcher at NASA.

The aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 23:28 GMT, at a distance of 325,000 km. It is the closest this space rock has come in 200 years.

NASA's Goldstone Observatory in California and the Arecibo Planetary Radar facility in Puerto Rico will scan the asteroid during the close pass in a bid to identify its path and substance, and where it may go in the future.
  

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Comment on this article

  • carmellaB,

    Mon, Nov 14 2011

    Asteroids are a class of Small Solar System Bodies in orbit around the Sun. Asteroids and the asteroid belt are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places human beings might colonize, resources for extracting minerals, hazards encountered by spaceships traveling between two other points, and as a threat to life on Earth by potential impact. A huge black asteroid passed near our planet Tues.

    The object was referred to as "the size of an aircraft carrier." Posing no threat to the Earth, the thing passed closer to us than the moon. Experts, however, had a great chance to view an asteroid close-up. There has not been a thing as big passing as near to us since 1976. title="Battleship-sized asteroid buzzes the Earth closer than the moon" ="http://www.newsytype.com/13432-asteroid-buzzes-earth/">Battleship-sized asteroid buzzes the Earth closer than the moon. The animation reveals a number of puzzling structures on the surface that we don’t yet understand.

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