A nearly 3-mile-wide asteroid will make a (relatively) close call with Earth on Friday

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  1. truebluefan

    truebluefan Administrator Staff Member Administrator

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    A huge asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, but don't worry, this isn't "Armageddon."

    The asteroid, named Florence, is an almost three-mile wide rock that will pass safely within about 4.4 million miles of Earth (7 million kilometers) at 8:05 a.m. ET on Friday, NASA says.
    And while a few million miles sounds like a lot of room, it's actually a pretty close pass when you're talking about the vastness of space. Other asteroids have passed closer to Earth than Florence, but few have been this big.


    "Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, said in a statement.

    read more http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/us/asteroid-florence-earth-fly-by-trnd/index.html
     

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