Two small asteroids will zip past Earth at distances closer than the moon today, April 6.
Newly-discovered asteroid 2011 GW9 flew within 48,000 miles of Earth twice this morning at 12:53 am EDT, according to the Jet Propulsion Lab’s Small Body Database. A second space rock, 2011 GP28, will slip within 120,000 miles of Earth at about 3:36 pm. GW9 is 20 to 46 feet across and GP28 is between 12 and 26 feet across, making both bodies two to three times smaller than the object that slammed into a region near the Tunguska River in Russia in 1908. This time, there is no danger of a collision.
Image: Asteroid Ida as imaged by the Galileo spacecraft in 1993. Credit: NASA
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