NASA: Asteroid flyby next week is the closest ever of its size
February 10, 2013
A close encounter of the rocky kind is set for Feb. 15, when an office-building-size asteroid will speed past Earth faster than a bullet and closer than some communications satellites.
It will be the nearest recorded brush with a space rock so large, NASA scientists said Thursday.
The good news: There’s no chance of an impact. At its closest, asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass about 17,000 miles above Earth.
The bad news: A million other potentially dangerous — and unknown — city-killing space rocks are out there, and one of them could be on a collision course with Earth. Critics say NASA and other space agencies are not doing enough to scan for these threats.
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