Thursday, August 31, 2017

Signs in the Heavens

Watch massive asteroid fly safely by Earth - UPI.com
UPI reports: "Early Friday morning, Florence -- the largest near Earth asteroid yet discovered and tracked by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- will pass within 4,390,892 miles of Earth, approximately 18 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. [...] The asteroid, named for war nurse Florence Nightingale, measures between 2.5 and 5.6 miles wide --scientists will have a more accurate estimate after the flyby. Anything larger than a half mile in diameter is capable of doing catastrophic damage should it collide with Earth."

Comment: That should be interesting, glad that spotted it. Last I heard the NASA office that monitors near-Earth asteroids suffered a budget cut, maybe that has changed? 

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