Another asteroid buzzes Earth

Posted by marko in astronomy, Featured Articles, Meteorites | 0 comments

Newly-discovered asteroid 2011 CQ1 will make its closest approach to earth around 1700GMT – about 20 minutes time.

The ‘miss distance’ (yes, that’s the technical term) is 60,000 miles, or about a quarter of the distance to the moon. It’s 2m across so about the size of a family car.

You can see a simulation here.

These NEOs (near-earth objects) objects are becoming better understood as more of the potentially hazardous rocks are discovered and tracked. Space Weather does a regular summary for a few days ahead.

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