Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Earth's Close Encounter With A Giant Asteroid!


If you didn’t know, there is a giant asteroid coming right at us. The good news is that it is positive that the huge rock won’t hit Earth. However, the asteroid is traveling at 29,000mph will get very close. Maybe 201,000 miles away from us at 6.28pm today.  That is closer than the moon, the moon is 238,000 miles away from Earth.
The very last time an asteroid came this close to earth was in 1976, when a smaller asteroid alse didn’t hit Earth. Unfortunately, all the experts including US Space Agency NASA, missed it. The fact that the next time we come across this is not estimated to happen until 2028, this makes today's “flyby” very special.
NASA was tracking the asteroid with the prevailing “antennas at the Deep Space Network in Goldstone, California and the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico.” While it is getting closer, they will send radio waves from the space rock, to try t get photographs that are clear enough to know the asteroid's surface features, shape, dimensions etc.
Let's hope it doesn’t get closer next time.

I think that this is amazing. It got so close, but then flew right next yo us. It didn't even hit a little part of Earth. Even though this happened about 2 months ago, I still thought it should have been said. It was a very special day when the asteroid flew by Earth. The next time this happens, I will be ready to see the asteroid coming toward us.

Citation:
Dolasia, Meera. "Earth's Close Encounter With A Giant Asteroid Happens Tonight!" Dogo News. N.p., 
n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. 
earths-close-encounter-with-a-giant-asteroid-happens-tonight>. 

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