Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Close

What are you doing on February 15th?  I know what the asteroid 2012 DA 14 will be doing - coming within 18,000 miles of Earth's surface.  It might sound far, but it's actually closer to us than the moon and some satellites. 

The asteroid is believed to be about 45 meters (~ 148 feet) in diameter, but will not be visible to the naked eye.

Check out its path and more information at NASA's Near Earth Object Program here: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news174.html

Many small objects come close to Earth every year.  To give you a flavor of what is really going on in space, here's an article from TIME magazine discussing this very topic: http://science.time.com/2013/02/05/duck-close-shave-with-an-asteroid-coming/

The asteroid Mathilde, taken by the
NEAR spacecract on 6/16/97


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