Asteroid Has Near Miss With Earth

NASA reported that a 23 foot wide asteroid came within about 8,700 miles of entering Earth's atmosphere on Friday. This was the third closest miss on record. Astronomers at the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey group announced the finding. They discovered the asteroid about 15 hours before it passed our planet, moving at more than 16,000 miles per hour.

So, what would have happened if the asteroid would have entered our atmosphere? Well, at 23 feet across, it most likely would have burned up in our atmosphere. The heat generated by air resistance as it fell toward Earth would have caused the asteroid to disintegrate. In fact it would take a very large asteroid, hundreds of feet across, to cause any significant damage, and those are large enough to see coming from quite a distance away. And yes, NASA is keeping a watchful eye.