As I'm writing this (13:40 UT) a newly-discovered asteroid, 2009 DD45, is flying past Earth at only 74,800 km (46,478.5 miles or 0.000482 AU) away. That's only about twice the height of a typical geostationary communications satellite, and well inside the moon's orbit. According to Spaceweather.com, the 30- to 40-meter wide space rock is similar in size to the Tunguska impactor of 1908, but this time there is no danger of a collision. At closest approach on March 2nd, (which just occurred) 2009 DD45 will speed through the constellation Virgo shining as brightly as an 11th magnitude star. So if you're in the Pacific region like Hawaii or Tahiti, go out and take a look! But this rock is moving fairly fast, and by tonight, it will only be 13th magnitude, and fading fast.

The asteroid was only discovered three days ago by the prolific asteroid hunter Robert McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, when the space rock was already within 2,414,016 km (1½ million miles) of Earth and closing fast. If you want to try and track it, here's the ephemeris information from the Minor Planet Center.

Check out the video:






46,000 miles!!! Holy !#@%! That’s too close for comfort. I’ve seen plenty of shows about the Tunguska incident and that would be devastating to a populated area.
And they only first spotted it 3 days prior

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History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man

Awesome!! Well..sort of .. You think that is cool, wait till 2012! Big ole hunk of rock will pass closer than the communication satellites!

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"Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars"

That is kind of scary, you would like to think that we would have seen it a lot sooner.

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"All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct." -- Carl Sagan

Yes, it was scary (i.e. the closeness and the lack of advance warning). I just took at look at Nasa's Near-Earth Object Program site http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ and saw no mention. WTF?

Hopefully, this shot-across-the-bow will scare up (literally) some more funds to properly staff this function.

"Do to the current economic downturn, the NEO Early Warning System will now be provided by a man in a really high tower who will yell "duck!" as appropriate."

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
--PKD

I'd would take those funds and buy some blow or pay bills than have a warning system in place. Not much you can do about a world ending rock hitting your planet. I'd rather get hit and cremated instantly than to agonize about it for an hour or two.

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war is some crazy sh** -alexander the great

Hey, I'd like to have enough of a warning to:
a) Have a few hours of mindless debauchery
b) Seek forgiveness from the Deit(y/ies) of my choosing
c) Book passage with the benign space-faring beings who have been dropping in from time to time to conduct anal probes.

Don't forget your towel and the fish to stick in your ear.....

Best wishes
Ford

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
--PKD

Don't Panic

Was any one able to see the trail? It was visible about 10° above the horizon in the East just after daybreak here.

<=== good belly laugh....

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Fantom Thrust - SHW Battlebot
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