Closest asteroid yet flies past Earth
18:17 02 October 03
NewScientist.com news service
An asteroid about the size of a small house passed just 88,000 kilometres from the Earth by on Saturday 27 September - the closest approach of a natural object ever recorded. Geostationary communication satellites circle the Earth 42,000km from the planet's centre.
The asteroid, designated 2003 SQ222, came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by. The first sighting was on Sunday 28 by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search program in Arizona, US.
Posted by P6 at October 3, 2003 11:26 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1824