 |
| The path of the small asteroid (2011MD) which will just miss hitting Earth Monday. Notice how Earth’s gravity sharply alters the asteroid’s trajectory. (NASA) |
Asteroid dubbed "2011 MD" will pass by the Earth over the south Atlantic around 1 p.m. EDT today missing a direct hit by only 7500 miles. In the vastness of space of the inner the solar system, this is considered a really close call – less than about 3% of the distance between Earth and the moon ...
Fortunately, asteroid strikes, especially those large enough to have disastrous consequences to life on earth (as, for example, the 112 mile wide asteroid which presumably led to the dinosaur’s demise of 65 million years ago), are few and far between. But no doubt they would be discovered and tracked years before any possible impact with Earth. Scientists consider asteroids as potentially hazardous only if their size is larger than 490 feet in width. A 900 foot asteroid is expected to pass within 18,000 miles of earth in 2029. Fear not, because the odds of it actually hitting the Earth are greater than 250,000 to 1
Read more @ The Washington Post
