Earth Gets Double Asteroid Flyby Wednesday - 1:32 PM -
Categories: Space Two small asteroids will zip past Earth at
distances closer than the moon April 6. Newly discovered
asteroid 2011 GW9 flew within 48,000 miles of Earth twice
Wednesday morning at 12:53 a.m. EDT [04:53 UT], according to the
Jet Propulsion Lab’s Small Body Database. A second space rock,
2011 GP28, will slip within 120,000 miles of Earth at about 3:36
p.m. [19:36 UT]. GW9 is 20 feet to 46 feet across, and GP28 is
between 12 feet and 26 feet across, making the bodies one-third
to one-half the size of the object that slammed into a region
near the Tunguska River in Russia in 1908. This time, there is
no danger of a collision. Image: Asteroid Ida as imaged by the
Galileo spacecraft in 1993. (NASA)