“Space Rock 2009 DD45 Buzzes Earth”

Discovered only two days ago, this 100 foot diameter asteroid will miss Earth by just 40,000 miles on Monday.

Space Rock 2009 DD45 Buzzes Earth - Sky and Telescope

Late word out of the IAU’s Minor Planet Center: a small asteroid will pass close to Earth tomorrow (March 2nd) at 13:44 Universal Time. How close? The MPC’s Timothy Spahr calculates that it’ll be 0.00047 astronomical unit from Earth’s center. That’s only about 40,000 miles (63,500 km) up — well inside the Moon’s orbit and roughly twice the altitude of most communications satellites!

According to the Discover blog where I found the story (see link below), if this rock hit Earth it would have the destructive force of a “high-yield nuclear weapon.” As the author of that blog states:

And I’ll add that while news like this scares some people, it actually makes me feel somewhat better: we’re getting really good at finding these kinds of things.

It’s now time for us Earthlings to have a plan when one of these rocks is discovered heading directly at us.

(Via: Discover)

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