An asteroid as large as an
Olympic swimming pool has
raced past the Earth at a
distance of just 27,700km
(17,200mi) - the closest ever
predicted for an object of that
size.
It passed far closer even than the
geosynchronous satellites that orbit
the Earth, but there was no risk of
impacts or collisions.
Its closest approach was at 19:25
GMT.
For regions in darkness, it should
remain visible until about midnight
through good binoculars or a
telescope.
The asteroid's arrival was preceded
by a damaging meteor event in
Russia on Friday - but indications
from the meteor's path suggest
that the two events are entirely
unrelated - just a "cosmic
coincidence", as Alan Fitzsimmons
of Queens University Belfast told
BBC News.
The asteroid orbits the Sun in 368
days - a period similar to Earth's
year - but it does not orbit in the
same plane as the Earth.
As it passes - at 7.8km/s (17,450
mi/hr) - it will come from "under"
the Earth and return back toward
the Sun from "above".
It passed directly over the eastern
Indian Ocean, making for the best
viewing in Eastern Europe, Asia and
Australia.
But keen viewers everywhere used
several live streams of the event on
the internet, including a feed from
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at
Nasa.
2012 DA14 was first spotted in
February 2012 by astronomers at
the La Sagra Sky Survey in Spain -
once a fairly small-scale, amateur
effort to discover and track
asteroids that has in recent years
become a significant contributor to
our knowledge of these "near-Earth
objects".
They caught sight of the asteroid
after its last pass, at a far greater
distance.
From their observations, they were
able to calculate the asteroid's
future and past paths and predict
Friday's near-miss - which will be
the closest the object comes for at
least 30 years.
Prof Fitzsimmons said that it is a
scientific opportunity not to be
missed.
"When asteroids come this close,
it's very important to try to learn
about them - it's become so bright,
so it's so easy to study," he told
BBC News.
"We get an additional insight into
these small objects, which are the
most likely impactors on Earth."
The notion that it is these smaller,
tens-to-hundreds of metres-sized
objects that pose the greatest
potential threat to Earth is explored
in the BBC feature article Can we
know about every asteroid?
.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21442863

Hope this size of a thing will never fall on earth

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