45minutes to impact

Only the 9th asteroid discovered before impact

only 1m in diameter though!

A rock 1m in diameter would be carrying a fair amount of kinetic energy, it’s not something you’d want landing in the middle of a major conurbation.

I wouldnt worry about that one. The really interesting one is asteroid 99942 Apophis which is due for a really, really close pass in 2029, when they predict it will pass within 19000 miles of Earth

Asteroid Apophis to sweep close 5 years from tomorrow

Argh, you’d get a bus through that gap !

Even if it’s an iron asteroid it’s not going to do much damage by the time it’s got through the atmosphere but there might be a stone to pick up. Anything less dense and it’ll come down as dust. Spectacular in the sky but not much risk on the ground unless you are very very unlucky.

I am quite impressed that they spotted it at all. There is quite a lot of space in lots of directions to be looking for a 1m rock and watching it long enough to predict its trajectory

I forgot to look ::D – did we survive?

@dyna-ti – I remember when this was first reported in the news. I was quite a young, anxious, and overimaginative teenager at the time and for some reason was already super scared of asteroids, tidal waves and the like.

When I saw this (on Newsround possibly?) I went into a borderline depressive episode for like 2 weeks thinking I only had 27 more years to live until they re-revised it and said it would almost definitely miss. I remember feeling a huge weight off my shoulders and feeling so happy haha.

Obviously I’ve long stopped worrying about cosmic impacts but it’s funny think if I hadn’t I would only have “five years to live” now!