Posted on 01/10/2017 12:28:09 PM PST by BenLurkin
An asteroid roughly the size of a 10-story building gave Earth a particularly close pass Monday morning.
Asteroid 2017 AG13 came within half the distance from Earth to the moon as it buzzed by early Monday morning at 4:47 a.m. PT. The fly-by happened shortly after scientists at the Catalina Sky Survey first discovered the space rock on Saturday.
...
In the cosmic sense, it really was a close shave. In real terms, Earth had well over a 100,000-mile (161,000 kilometer) buffer of distance.
...
The asteroid is about 36 to 111 feet (11 to 34 meters) across, according to the Slooh Observatory, and moving very fast relative to Earth at 10 miles (16 kilometers) per second. That speed, coupled with 2017 AG13's dim brightness level, made it difficult to spot with telescopes.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnet.com ...
Don’t want to worry you too much friend but stuff hits the Earth’s atmosphere all day, everyday. The majority of it is small stuff but we do get some big stuff. We’ve been hit by really big stuff in the past and we will be hit again. That’s just the way it is. Nothing we can really do about it. On the good side thanks be to God big old planet Jupiter is out there. Jupiter’s kind of like a cosmic short stop. It’s massive size and gravity pulls in a lot of the stuff that would otherwise come smashing into us.
Thats how much time the planet has. We spotted it on Saturday and Monday morning was splashdown. If its YUGE and mysteriously dark and undetectable we may only “know” about for a few hours and its really not gonna matter that much.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.