Asteroid to shave past Earth inside Moon orbit: ESA
An asteroid the size of a house will shave past Earth at a distance of some 44,000 kilometres (27,300 miles) in October, inside the Moon’s orbit, astronomers said (AFP Photo/NASA)
Paris (AFP) – An asteroid the size of a house will shave past Earth at a distance of some 44,000 kilometres (27,300 miles) in October, inside the Moon’s orbit, astronomers said Thursday.
The space rock will zoom by at an eighth of the distance from the Earth to the Moon — far enough to just miss our geostationary satellites orbiting at about 36,000 kilometres, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).
“It will not hit the Earth,” said Detlef Koschny of ESA’s “Near Earth Objects” research team. “That’s the most important thing to say.”