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AP/Press Association Images
Space
Watch out - asteroids closer to Earth today than the moon
Two asteroids pass within lunar radius.
TWO ASTEROIDS ZIPPED past Earth today, well within the moon’s distance to the planet.
Both asteroids are several meters wide in diameter, according to NASA.
One, with the catchy name 2010 RX30, is estimated to be between 10 and 20 metres in size. It was expected to pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 248,000km, to you and me).
A second smaller asteroid, 2010 RF12, believed to be between 6 and 14 metres, was due to come within 79,000km – putting it within 0.2 lunar distances of Earth.
The moon’s orbit has an average radius of 384,000 km.
The two objects were discovered by a sky monitoring station in Arizona last Sunday. Recently, TheJournal.ie posted this video of every asteroid discovery recorded since 1980:
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