Close encounter promised as asteroid headed to Earth

AN ASTEROID bigger than an aircraft carrier will dart between the Earth and moon today — the closest encounter by such a huge rock in 35 years.

The asteroid stretches a quarter-mile across. But scientists say not to worry. It won’t hit.

“We’re extremely confident, 100% confident, that this is not a threat,” said the manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Programme, Don Yeomans. “But it is an opportunity.”

The asteroid, named 2005 YU55, is being watched by ground antennas as it approaches from the direction of the sun. The last time it came this close to earth was 200 years ago.

Closest approach will occur at 1.28pm GMT today when the asteroid passes within 202,000 miles of Earth. That’s closer than the roughly 240,000 miles between the Earth and the moon.

The moon will be just under 150,000 miles from the asteroid at the time of closest approach.

Both the Earth and moon are safe — “this time,” said Jay Melosh, professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University.

If 2005 YU55 were to plow into the home planet, it would blast out a crater four miles across and 1,700 feet deep, according to Melosh’s calculations.

Think a magnitude-7 earthquake and 70-foot- high tsunami waves.

Scientists have been tracking the slowly spinning, spherical, dark-coloured object since its discovery in 2005, and are positive it won’t do any damage.

“We know the orbit of this object very well,” Yeomans said.

Smaller objects come close all the time, Yeomans noted, but nothing this big will have ventured so close since 1976. And nothing this large will again until 2028.

Scientists said inform- ation gleaned from 2005 YU55, as well as other asteroids, will prove useful if and when it becomes necessary to deflect an incoming rock in a mann- er depicted in movies such as Armageddon.