By Fernando Bustos
News
Could have been DD45
According to boston.com a 115 feet wide asteroid flashes by earth in a cosmic close call, at 8:40 am ET. On March 2, 2009 an asteroid called dd45 passed earth by 45,000 miles not too far from satellites that orbit the earth and about one-fifth of the distance between the moon and earth, NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory reported. The asteroid was noticed on February 28th only two days before the asteroid passed by earth. It passed over the Pacific Ocean near Tahiti at its closest point. The asteroid was spotted by Australians astronomers when the asteroid was one million miles away from earth. Astronomers say they didn’t see it coming until Saturday. Once they found it, they determined there was no risk of a collision. It buzzed by earth at 8:40 a.m. ET. If the asteroid did hit it would cause a 500ft tall tsunami wave destroying a populated area. Asteroids of this size would unleash a destructive power to about 10 to 15 megaton’s of TNT. Dr Crowther explained this is about 1,000 times more powerful than the blast from the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The next known asteroid will come in such close proximity to earth is in 2029. An asteroid known as 99942 Apophis, an 885-square-foot space rock, is expected to come within 20,000 miles of the planet. Having not heard of this at the time made me upset. But I understood why it was not publicized so much. If I were to say that the end of the world is in the next 30 minutes most people would react recklessly to all their emotions and would cause chaos on earth. So if this happens again I would prefer to be told but in a calm manner so that I would not react to my first reactions.
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