Watch Live as Asteroid 2012 DA14 Whizzes Past Earth

Want to keep tabs on asteroid 2012 DA14 as it whizzes past Earth tomorrow (Feb. 15)? NASA TV and several online astronomy outlets will be tracking this asteroid as it makes its record-setting close shave. This marks the first time there has been an asteroid of this size passing this close that we’ve known a year beforehand. No, there’s no chance it will hit us, but it will come within 27,600 kilometers (17,150 miles) from the surface of the Earth, inside the ring of geosynchronous satellites girdling our planet Earth. It will closest to Earth at 2:25 p.m. EST (19:25 UTC).

Find out how you can watch on TV or online as this 50 meter- (164 feet-) wide space rock goes by:
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Post tags: Asteroid 2012 DA14, Asteroids, Live broadcasts, webcasts

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Whew! Big asteroid no longer threat to Earth

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Upon further review, a big scary-sounding asteroid is no longer even a remote threat to smash into Earth in about 20 years, NASA says.

Astronomers got a much better look at the asteroid when it whizzed by Earth on Wednesday from a relative safe 9 million miles away. They recalculated the space rock's trajectory and determined it wasn't on a path to hit Earth on April 13, 2036 as once feared possible.

At more than 1,060 feet wide, the rock called Apophis could do significant damage to a local area if it hit and perhaps even cause a tsunami. But it was not large enough to trigger worldwide extinctions. One prominent theory that explains the extinctions of dinosaurs and other species 65 million years ago says a six-mile-wide meteorite hit Earth and spewed vast amounts of dust into the air, cooling and darkening the planet.

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