Category: Odd + Funny Author : Duncan Riley Posted: March 1, 2009
Tags : comet, comet March 2, DD45, near miss, scary
Don’t panic: Asteroid to pass within 40,000 miles of Earth

In yet another demonstration about how we’re all eventually going to be doomed, an asteroid discovered two days ago will pass earth at 13:44 Universal Time March 2nd at a distance of 40,000 miles, or 63,500 kms.
While that may sound a long way out, it’s only roughly twice as high as your average satellite, and closer to the Earth than the Moon.
According to Sky and Telescope, the comet, designated 2009 DD45, turned up as a 19th-magnitude blip in images taken at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. The comet is relatively small, 100 feet (30 meters) across and if they’ve miscalculated the passing, it would in theory burn up in our atmosphere.
The bad news for comet watchers is that the point of closest approach occurs over the Pacific somewhere west of Tahiti, although the comet should be visible from Hawaii, Japan and the East Coast of Australia with a telescope.
Although close, this isn’t the closest call in recent times. A small comet passed the earth by only 4,000 miles on March 31, 2004.







Mar 2, 2009
how did this asteroid turn into a comet?!
Mar 2, 2009
LOL dunno
Mar 2, 2009
A 30m space rock devastated 1000s of sqaure kilometres of forest in Siberia in 1908. It has many times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb. It would not “burn up in the atmosphere” – it would explode.
Mar 2, 2009
is't true???????i can't imagine what will happen to our earth soon……….