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Comets and asteroids that enter the Earth’s neighborhood nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets are known as near-Earth Objects (NEOs).
One such near-Earth asteroid named 4179 Toutatis formerly known as 1989 AC was discovered by Christian Pollas on January 4, 1989, at Caussols, France. On
December 12, 2012, this asteroid with a shape of a “malformed potato” tumbled through space like a fumbled football, within 4.3 million miles from Earth.
Another near-Earth asteroid discovered on February 23, 2012, by the OAM Observatory, La Sagra in Spain with an estimated diameter of about 45 meters (about half the size of a football field) weighing about 130,000 metric tons mass probably made of stone in contrast to metal or ice is now hurtling towards the earth.
On February 15, 2013, this asteroid labeled 2012 DA14 will pass within about 3.5 Earth radii of the Earth’s surface inside the geosynchronous weather and communication satellites ring, approximately 35,800 kilometers above the equator.
Even though asteroids like 2012 DA14 fly past Earth almost every 40 years they impact with our planet only every 1200 years or so. Don Yeomans, Paul Chodas, and Jon Giorgini of NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office after predicting the asteroid’s path have declared that according to their observations, there is no chance that the asteroid might be on a collision course with the Earth, and it will safely fly past Earth’s outer ring of satellites on February 15.
“Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we’ve never seen an object this big gets so close to Earth,” Don Yeomans said.
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Related articles
- Asteroid 2012 DA14 Will Pass the Earth on February 15, 2013. (tvaraj.wordpress.com)
- Asteroid 2012 DA14 Will Flyby on February 15, 2013 (tvaraj.wordpress.com)
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