March 2, 2009

New asteroid dropped by to say "Good Morning"

Per National Geographic, Asteroid 2009 DD45, discovered only days ago, buzzed between earth and the moon this morning at 8:44 a.m. Eastern Time. The asteroid was only 41,010 miles above earth, but only sky-watchers from Asia, Australia and the Pacific were able to see it.

Timothy Sphar, the director of International Astronomical Union, said in an email to National Geographic that asteroids like this pass close to earth all the time and this is a normal occurrence.

The Twitterverse was alight with comments:

jcsimonds: (Reno, Nevada) @slipdown "SpaceWeather.com issued alert (about asteroid near miss)." I can just hear it now: "Today there will b a near apocalypse"



yokamo: (Pacific) An asteroid the size of a 10-story building flew past Earth today about twice the distance as the highest Earth-orbiting satellites,,,wow



isko: (Hellsinki, Finland) WOW!!! this kinda puts things into perspective: "Surprise Asteroid Makes Near-Miss of Earth" http://bit.ly/ck1Dn



garyobrien: (Charlotte, North Carolina) Crikey! Did we almost get hit by an asteroid? http://is.gd/ltgm



syael1339: I'm blaming the asteroid for the snow .... and for Rush Limbaugh.




NicoleLewis: Anyone know what time the asteroid will be passing us? Armageddon here we come





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