2010 AL30, Asteroid Or Space Junk, To Pay a Close Visit

astroengine writes "A near-Earth object that could be manmade has just been discovered hurtling toward us. On Wednesday (Jan. 13), an object called 2010 AL30 will fly by Earth at a distance of just 130,000 km (80,000 miles). That's only one-third of the way from here to the moon, i.e. very close. It will miss us, and if it did hit us, it wouldn't do any damage anyway, but I managed to pick up on some chatter between planetary scientists and found out that the 'asteroid,' or whatever it is, gives us a new standard: a 10-meter-wide asteroid can be detected two days before it potentially hits Earth. A pretty useful warning if you ask me."

Comments

Re:Not an asteroid?

[Sockatume]

It's not thought to be "space junk" any more: it was thought it might be an old booster segment but apparently based on its path there's no rocket launch that it could've come from.