Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth
Space rock has 'destructive power of H-bomb'
AN asteroid with the destructive power of an H-bomb will narrowly miss Earth a week on Friday, it was reported today.
The space rock will be the closest ever recorded as it shoots past our planet on February 15.
Alarmingly, it will fly BENEATH satellites and has the power to flatten London if it hit the capital.
Don Yeomans from NASA’s Near Earth Object Programme said: “It will be a record-setting close approach though the orbit of the asteroid is known well enough to rule out an impact.”
Named 2012 DA14 and discovered last year, the lump will come within 15,000 miles of Earth and is one of 500,000 known rocks circling us. Experts also say it will zoom past the planet every year.
Astronomer Jonti Horner from the University of New South Wales, Australia, said: “The most important thing about this asteroid is it reminds us the threat from such objects is very real.”
Meanwhile, two US companies have outlined radical plans to harvest asteroids for their mineral wealth.
The space rocks would be prospected by tiny satellites before being dragged into the Earth's orbit to allow space miners to reap their precious metals and liquids.
Proposals on how to deflect asteroids on a collision course with Earth include knocking them off course with rockets or nuking them with missiles.
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