Asteroid to have a near miss with Earth
January 27th, 2012 - 10:02 pm ICT by Aishwarya BhattWashington, Jan 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Scientists have assured that there is no cause for alarm despite the fact that an asteroid will be coming very close to the earth. In fact at its closest, the asteroid will fly by the planet at just 60,000 km away. The distance is about a fifth of the distance between earth and the moon.
The space rock was only discovered on Wednesday. Space scientist Gareth Williams from the Minor Planet Center in the United States told BBC that, “It’s one of the closest approaches recorded. It makes it in to the top 20 closest approaches, but it’s sufficiently far away… that there’s absolutely no chance of it hitting us.”
The asteroid is named 2012 BX34 and it is estimated to be about 11 meters in diameters. This will be the closest shave the earth has had with an asteroid since 2011 MD flew by the planet in June 2011. The stone will not be visible to the naked eye but scientists say amateur space watchers can catch the asteroid flying past the planet. It will make its closest approach to the planet at 1600 GMT.’
Initially estimates said the planet’s closest shave with the earth will be 20,000 km but it was reviewed overnight.
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Tags: bbc, diameters, distance between earth and the moon, earth and the moon, estimates, fly, gmt, minor planet center, naked eye, scientists, space rock, space scientist