Friday, July 07, 2006

Asteroid Misses Earth By A Whisker

In astronomical terms, the asteroid that passed by Earth at 10 miles a second early Monday, July 3rd missed by a whisker. The half-mile-wide space rock that hurtled by was only 268,624 miles from Earth. That's about the distance of the moon to the Earth, scientists said, and close enough to be called a near miss."(The asteroid) would probably be big enough to wipe out a small country," said Dr. David Asher of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. Scientists said if it were just a bit larger, it could have been capable of wiping out most life on Earth, if it had hit.

The object known as 2004 XP1 was continually monitored as it made a close approach to Earth and sped past. Scientists estimated that the asteroid will have 10 more close encounters with Earth over this century, none of which will pose a threat. Another asteroid will pass close enough to Earth that it will be seen with the naked eye, but it won't arrive until Friday, April 13, 2029. It will be within the geosychronos orbit of some satellites.
from: TheDenverChannel.com.
LINK: NEAR EARTH OBJECT PROGRAM

5 comments:

Michael Bains said...

Cool, huh.

I can just hear it sayin', "Ah'll be bahck."

{-;

Delta said...

Our current economic and political structures are incapable of dealing with these types of threats that could potentially wipe out humanity. I'm afraid that insufficient resistance will be mustered before it kills us all.

vjack said...

I can already hear the Christian extremists saying that this proves their god is on our side.

JDHURF said...

Hey, just got my wifi all in order and I am just getting back into the mix of things...I posted a new short blog and plan on posting on all the regular blogs again!

Stardust said...

Hey JD...glad to have you back...missed ya!