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Phew! Asteroids passing by Earth on Monday was a cosmic close call

Published on March 4, 2009; Published on December 30, 2009
The Associated Press ~ staff The News

Topics :: NASA , Jet Propulsion Laboratory , Planetary Society , Siberia , PASADENA, Calif. , Pacific Ocean

PASADENA, Calif. - An asteroid about the size of one that blasted Siberia a century ago just buzzed by Earth.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported that the asteroid zoomed past Monday morning.
The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 78,000 kilometres from Earth.
That is just twice the height of some telecommunications satellites and about a fifth of the distance to the Moon.
The space ball measured between 21 metres and 47 metres in diameter.
The Planetary Society said that made it the same size as an asteroid that exploded over Siberia in 1908 and levelled more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
Most people probably didn't notice the cosmic close call.
The asteroid was only spotted two days ago and at its closest point passed over the Pacific Ocean near Tahiti.

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