Environment

Huge asteroid passes close to Earth

by Amy Judd | March 3, 2009 at 04:45 pm

651 views | 28 Recommendations | 5 comments

An asteroid has passed close to Earth say scientists, and it could be as big as a ten-storey building.

It is known as 2009, DD45, and could be as big as 21-47 meters across.

The gap was just 72,000 km (44,750 miles); a fifth of the distance between our planet and the Moon.

It is in the same size range as a rock which exploded over Siberia in 1908 with the force of 1,000 atomic bombs.

This asteroid has passed by our planet before, and was sighted again on Saturday in Australia.
Let's hope this one doesn't explode.

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Uwe Paschen

at 17:21 on March 3rd, 2009

Now that explains all the mayhem...

Now we are no longer responsible as humans, is that not right? Wishful thinking. But the trouble will remain and we still have to fix it.

kuuva

at 17:34 on March 3rd, 2009

in the end we all could go just like a snap of a finger. The universe is bigger than we think, i think humans always think we are at the top - not so.

bonn (not verified)

at 03:13 on March 4th, 2009

it is a little bit more complicated than that

Keith Ranville

at 13:36 on March 10th, 2009

I was watching the discovery channel the other day and the Siberia in 1908 explosion may also have been a natural planet occurance. But, there are astroids out there that are not documented this; 2009, DD45 is probaly a small percentage of whats really out there. That may pose a threat to earth.

Nice Story Amyjudd, it almost seems like the begining of a scifi movie!

whitewinged1 (not verified)

at 21:34 on April 20th, 2009

Well apparently the governments around the world also thought it best to not tell the people about a very recent asteroid that was supposed to be the end of us all. It swung in behind the sun and was larger than the planet Jupiter.A huge solar flare shot out towards it and literally pushed it of of it's original course. NASA knew of this earth killer way in advance and the US government said nothing because they were certain that this asteroid would be the end of life on this planet as we know it and i for one am pissed off.. I would think they would at the very least give us notice so that we might have the chance to say good bye and be with loved ones for our final moments on earth!