Asteroid to have close brush with Earth

Not since 1973. Asteroid a "few meter" across will whiz by only 63,000km from earth - or closer. It has been deemed a "harmless risk" to anyone. Put into perspective our Moon is 384,000km away. This space rock discovered on Feb 27 is officially called DD45-2009 and is being tracked by the jet Propulsion Lab, Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory and others. Its size matches the Tunguska asteroid which blew up in the atmosphere over Siberia RUS in June 17, 1908 at 0014h GMT flattening thousands of sq kilometers (see photo). Astronomers used to make these announcements all the time - along with danger ratings - until the noticed people started to panic.



The devastation toppled trees in a 50km radius but there was no crater. The most likely explanation is that the 10m asteroid exploded on entry in the Earth's atmosphere. The heart built up in front of the rock is immense and would likely be equivalent to a 20mt blast - about the same as Nagasaki JAP at the end of WWII. The U.S Dept of Defense has also revealed that there are a couple of these blasts in the upper atmosphere every year.

Here is list of all "asteroid-like" objects that have been recorded.