Asteroid will Just Miss Hitting Earth on February 15th Fly-By

According to a report from CNN, an asteroid will narrowly miss an impact with the earth on February 15th, 2013. The 150 foot wide asteroid, dubbed by NASA as asteroid 2012 DA14, will pass by the earth at a distance of only about 12,000-16,000 miles away. This is a distance closer to the surface of the Earth than the communications, television, and other satellites currently in geosynchronous orbit.

This anticipated near-miss of the earth by an asteroid may be visible to some on the ground, and is reportedly the closest pass of such a large object recorded so far. While this asteroid is not expected to impact the Earth, there is a good chance that it could collide with one or more of the satellites orbiting the earth.

This impending asteroid fly-by comes just weeks after a close fly-by of a much larger, 3 mile wide, asteroid on December 12th, 2012. Radar images from NASA’s Deep Space Network recorded the passage of asteroid 4179 Toutatis tumbling by the Earth, about 4.3 million miles away. While researchers indicate that the Toutatis asteroid does not appear likely to intersect with the Earth’s orbit at any time in the next 400 years or more, if it did, it would likely wipe out much of the life on the planet.