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Wednesday, 06 April 2011 19:30

Earth Gets Double Asteroid Flyby Wednesday

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Earth Gets Double Asteroid Flyby Wednesday

Two small asteroids will zip past Earth at distances closer than the moon April 6.

Newly discovered asteroid 2011 GW9 flew within 48,000 miles of Earth twice Wednesday morning at 12:53 a.m. EDT [04:53 UT], 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 p.m. [19:36 UT].

GW9 is 20 feet to 46 feet across, and GP28 is between 12 feet and 26 feet across, making the bodies one-third to one-half the size of 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. (NASA)

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Earth Gets Double Asteroid Flyby WednesdayLisa is a Wired Science contributor based loosely in Seattle, Washington.
Follow @astrolisa and @wiredscience on Twitter.

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