Some nice asteroid stories in the news. At http://phys.org/print301303272.html … concerns a newly discovered asteroid that made a close approach to Earth on September 16th – did you notice? It came within 4.2 million miles away and has probably been coming close to Earth on numerous occasions over the last few thousand years. At just 400m across the asteroid has not been picked up before – until the Ukarainians, looking at the sky in case there might be another Chelyabinsk meteor on the horizon, found it. It is due to come close to the Earth again in 2032 – bring out the odd doomsayer. NASA has downplayed the potential.
At http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/nasa-asteroid-2013-tv135-put-o… … but not according to NASA. The Russians and the Ukrainians might be a bit edgy. The same story is at http://phys.org/print301235540.html … where the speculation is running
At http://phys.org/print301129478.html … we learn that a chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteor has been fished out of a Russian lake – even the BBC ran with the story.
At http://phys.org/print301044642.html … astronomers say they need to characterise potential Earth impactors – as a result of Chelyabinsk. There are currently 10,000 known Near Earth Objects. Some 900 are bigger than ikm wide. Lots of small asteroids have not been identified.