Asteroid Coming Close on Monday
Only discovered on June 22nd, an asteroid the size of a house (estimates are from 10 to 50 yards in diameter) will come within 7,630 miles from Earth’s surface on Monday, June 27th at 17:00 UCT (noon in the centeral U.S.). For reference the moon is 200,000 miles away from the Earth.
Kudos to LINEAR for the find, but next time let’s get a little more heads up ok? Five days is not enough time for Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to launch into space, argue over who will sacrifice themselves and save the day. For a die hard shrink-the-government guy like me, this is one program I would gladly increase the budget on.
Luckily for us, even if this one did impact the Earth, scientists estimate most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, giving onlookers plenty to gawk at and lame Science Channel shows more fodder.
Article at Universe Today.
