NASA picks up another 'potentially hazardous' asteroid set to pass close to Earth today
Channel: Александр Юрьевич Чукланов
Date: 2018-03-09

NASA picks up another 'potentially hazardous' asteroid set to pass close to Earth today
Don't worry, the space agency says it's not going to hit us
NASA has found an asteroid passing close enough to Earth that it falls in the category of being "potentially hazardous".
Even so, there's very little chance the asteroid - which has been dubbed Asteroid 2018 CB - will strike Earth.
Instead, it's predicted to pass Earth at a distance of about 39,000 miles travelling a speed close to five miles per second.
The asteroid is 40-miles wide - roughly twice that of the one that struck Chelyabinsk in Russia - and would have serious consequences if it hit.
"Asteroids of this size do not often approach this close to our planet — maybe only once or twice a year," said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
"Although 2018 CB is quite small, it might well be larger than the asteroid that entered the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, almost exactly five years ago, in 2013.”
The asteroid was discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) near Tucson, Arizona.
It's expected to zoom past Earth at 10.30pm on Friday, March 3.