Thursday, January 26, 2012

Bus-Size Asteroid to Give Earth Close Shave Friday

Date: 26 January 2012 Time: 04:31 PM ET
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Asteroid 2012 BX34
The newly discovered asteroid 2012 BX34 (whose orbit is represented by the blue line) will come within 0.17 lunar distances of Earth on Jan. 27, 2012, experts say.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A small asteroid will make an extremely close pass by Earth Friday (Jan. 27), coming much nearer than the moon, but the space rock poses no danger of impacting our planet, NASA scientists say.
The newfound asteroid 2012 BX34, which is about the size of a city bus, will pass within 36,750 miles (59,044 kilometers) of Earth at about 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) Friday, astronomers with NASA's Asteroid Watch program announced via Twitter.
The space rock is about 36 feet (11 meters) wide, making it much too small to pose a threat to Earth.
"It wouldn't get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try," Asteroid Watch scientists tweeted today (Jan. 26). Asteroid Watch is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

MORE: http://www.space.com/14373-asteroid-2012-bx34-earth-flyby.html

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