Newfound Asteroid Will Fly Close by Earth Thursday

[DEMONKAI]

Yahoo news:

A newly discovered asteroid will zip close by Earth Thursday, but poses no threat of crashing into our planet even though it is passing within the orbit of the moon.


The asteroid, called 2010 GA6, is a relatively small space rock about 71 feet (22 meters) wide and was discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Az. The space rock will fly within the orbit of the moon when it passes Earth Thursday at 7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT), but NASA astronomers said not to worry...the planet is safe.


"Fly bys of near-Earth objects within the moon's orbit occur every few weeks," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement.


At the time of its closest pass, asteroid 2010 GA6 will be about 223,000 miles (359,000 km) from the Earth. That's about nine-tenths the distance between Earth and the moon [more asteroid photos].


The space rock is not the first asteroid to swing close by Earth this year.


In January, the small asteroid 2010 AL30 passed within 80,000 miles (130,000 km) when it zipped by. Other space rocks have flown past Earth at more comfortable distances greater than several hundred thousand miles.


NASA routinely tracks asteroids and comets that may fly near the Earth with a network of telescopes on the ground and in space. The agency's Near-Earth Object Observations program, more commonly known as Spaceguard, is responsible for finding potentially dangerous asteroids and studying their orbits to determine if they pose a risk of hitting the Earth.


NASA's latest space telescope, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) launched in December, has been given the task of hunting new asteroids that were previously undetectable because they shine only in the infrared range of the light spectrum.


So far, the WISE telescope has been discovering dozens of previously unknown asteroids every day. Some of those space rocks have been tagged for closer analysis since they may be potentially hazardous to Earth, WISE mission scientists have said.

[Vitamin]

Hopefully we'll be able to see it. 
And isn't there a giant asteroid or meteor heading towards the earth in a couple of years?

[SanjiSasuke]

Oh sure it "won't" hit Earth. What's that? All the world leaders are going 'on vacation'? No worries!

[♦ßlôödÑinjå♦]

Known about this for a while now, thanks for posting.

[DEMONKAI]

Hopefully we'll be able to see it. 
And isn't there a giant asteroid or meteor heading towards the earth in a couple of years?

*sigh* pretty much. er so. Russia already made preperations for that asap last year. Thats why in some weird way for years i always said as much as i dont want nukes in the wrong hands we should keep some for somethin like that....But we did develop some kind of Laser that shoots from earth. I remember somethin like that years ago when Arnold swartzenegger mentioned to fund it after the first test they showed...so eh who knows...

Known about this for a while now, thanks for posting.

No prob. just like people to be aware of some things of the world

[Scar]

Who remembers Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994 where mass panic ran rapid!!

That was one a crazy near miss.

To bad for jupiter though!!

[DEMONKAI]

Who remembers Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994 where mass panic ran rapid!!

That was one a crazy near miss.

To bad for jupiter though!!

nah scar i dont remember that. And jupiter got smacked??
Me and my best friend where talking about last night how good it is to have those big as planets protecting us on earth.
(haha)

But the sad thing about all this is even if the earth doesnt get hit in time before all our old age deaths. which that will be the case after most of here at IMT are old, dead n gone. If the moon ever got smacked we are still toast . Not by explosion but by weather conditions and natural disasters. The moon is a part of our magnetic setting to the orbital hold also. Plus ya gotta think about it. If tidal waves are a part of how close the moon is to the earth at times, just imagine if it where gone?

Our orbit is very delicate so at any givin time somethin can happen. Hell, the sun is hella old and stars die eventually ....
its just funny but "nice to know" that our good scientists can see an asteroid coming billions of miles away and just know we are already dead before it happens....sorry folks we dont have the official Death star beam prefected yet