An asteroid will pass extremely near our planet today. The 32ft (10 metre) long asteroid will pass by at a distance of one tenth of the distance between Earth and the moon. This close encounter will be followed by a much larger asteroid, 200ft (61 metres) long, that is set to pass us by in just a few days.

According to the Virtual Telescope project the asteroid, named 2016 RB1, ‘will make an exceptionally close encounter with our home planet.’ At the flyby time, 18:12 BST or 13:12 ET, the asteroid will be at about 24,800 miles (40,000 km) from the Earth’s surface.  For comparison, the average distance to the moon is 239,000 miles (384,000 km), which means the asteroid will pass at a tenth of that distance. READ MORE

 


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