Asteroid 2004 BL86, which is about 1,800 feet (550 meters) wide, come in 745,000 miles (1.2 million km) of our planet Monday - about three times the distance from Earth to the Moon. This flight poses no threat to Earth, it is a rare opportunity to get a good look at the asteroid close to Earth, NASA officials say.
Mountain-size asteroid will zoom past Earth on Monday (January 26), marking the closest pass by such a large space rock until 2027.
We can watch the 2004 BL86 span in visible light (unlike radar observations) live Monday with the help of a virtual telescope project in Italy.
Views:
Jas Stellar
I find it frustrating that Nat Geo articles about space related objects such as this always talk from a North American point of view. There are so many more people in the world who enjoy this stuff other than Americans and it would be great if the Nat Geo editors and writers considered this.
The Oracle
They should take all the global warming funding and aim it at this issue which has a 100% probability of happening.
Ellen
Whoever is not killed from a large asteroid hit will wish they were as they slowly die from all the radiation that will be spread around the world. The radiation will come from manmade sources stored in and around all the nuclear plants that will be toast.
