Asteroid flyby in 2013 - only 17,000 miles away!

Emailed from a friend:

A 150-foot asteroid called 2012 DA14 will pass so close to Earth next year it will fly UNDER man-made satellites orbiting our planet. This body is a good bit bigger than other recent near-miss objects! Nasa's Impact Risk report said that the odds of the space rock actually hitting Earth are very low indeed - but on 2013 February 15 it will pass just 17,000 miles from Earth, just a bit more than twice the Earth's diameter!

If an asteroid of that size hit our our planet, it would cause an explosion similar to a major nuclear blast. Astronomers from the Observatory Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain spotted 2012 DA14 in late February and its orbit has been calculated to be very similar to Earth’s.

17,000 miles is much closer than many of our own orbiting satellites. This is believed to be the closest pass of a reasonable-sized asteroid ever seen before the actual pass itself.

In astronomical terms, 17,000 miles is pretty close, but in practical terms it’s a clear miss. After next year, 2012 DA14’s closest brush with Earth will come in 2020, but even then the odds of an impact will be less than the chance of being hit by lightning in your lifetime – 1 in 100,000.

So, Lotto ticket anyone?



Seanie.

it wont make no never mind......caus it will be all over on the 21/12/12...dont ya know...feckin mayans and all that

but just in case we are here! will we be able to spot it?

signed
very disturbed

Co Laois

Um, Declan...



:evil: