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Close Approach By Asteroid 2012 BX34

Posted by Soulskill on from the everybody-wave dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news that asteroid 2012 BX34, 11 meters wide, is in the process of passing within 60,000km of Earth — about a fifth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. At that size, the asteroid would pose no danger even if it hit the Earth's atmosphere.

2 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anyone feel like jumping off onto it? by iggymanz · · Score: 5, Informative

    nope, stony asteroid has to be about 35 meters or more in diameter to "make a dent", otherwise it will just burn up in atmosphere.

  2. Re:Anyone feel like jumping off onto it? by iggymanz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    also of interest, a 10 meter metal (e.g. iron-nickel) asteroid will have big fragments that will hit the ground, for example the one that hit Sikhote-Alin mountains in Siberia in February 1947, 150 tons of fragments hit the ground and one of them weighed 1.7 tons!