Asteroid Zips Pretty Darn Close to Earth

The asteroid wasn't even known of before last Friday, when Robert McNaught of the Australian National University spotted it. The asteroid came within 38,000 miles of Earth at 13:44 Universal Time on Monday. 38,000 miles may seem like a long distance, but in the vast expanse of space, that's a dang near miss.

The asteroid was approximately 40 yards across, and it was only twice the distance from Earth than most of our geostationary communications satellites.

Scientists have noted that in the vast lifespan of Earth, the planet has been hit before by meteors and asteroids, and will probably be hit again. This near miss is more of a warning shot across our bow than it was a real danger.

McNaught told CNN:

"If discovered in advance and with enough lead time, there is the possibility of pushing it off course, if you have decades of advance warning. If you have only a few days, you can evacuate the area of impact, but there's not a great deal [else] you can do."

Of course, there's always the chance of an asteroid that's large enough to produce an E.L.E., an extinction level event.

This isn't the closest "near-miss" an asteroid has made, however. According to the MPC, 2004 FU162 passed by Earth just 4,000 miles from us on March 31, 2004. Of course, at 20 feet across, it probably would have burned up in the atmosphere.