Could it be the Mayans were a couple of months off?
It might seem like something out of the movie Armageddon, but within a day of each other two frightening and spectacular astronomical events occurred that show just how close we could get to a real doomsday scenario.
The first happened in the skies over Russia, when on Thursday a meteor streaked through the skies over Russia, exploding with a shockwave that shattered glass windows for miles around, injuring up to 1000 people.
The second event occurred yesterday when an asteroid labeled 2012 DA-14 flew by Earth at a record-breaking distance of just 17,200 miles — the closest ever recorded for an asteroid of its size.
While that may still seem like quite a distance, to put it in perspective, the asteroid came closer to our planet than some communications satellites we have in orbit. In the grand scheme of our universe, that’s just a hair’s breadth away.
Had the 50 meter rock actually hit the Earth, it would have enough destructive force to level a city the size of New York, not to mention the environmental catastrophe it would cause. It is believed by scientists that a large asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Watch this video, which shows Nasa’s coverage of the asteroid’s near-miss fly-by.
SOURCES:
Asteroid 2012 DA14 in record-breaking Earth pass
Russian Meteor Not Related to Asteroid Flyby, NASA Confirms