EARTH TO GET CLOSE SHAVE FROM NEW ASTEROID

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Jeffrey Newman

An asteroid 30 to 50 feet across will pass by the Earth at just more than one-third the distance between the Earth and the moon on Wednesday. That’s the closest near-Earth object approach currently known between now and the flyby in 2024 of a similar-size object known as 2007 XB23.

The new asteroid, called 2010 AL30, was discovered by the NASA-funded Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program, and announced Monday by the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/new-asteroid/#ixzz0cnHNGwZT

It should be noted that an asteroid this small probably would not cause major damage were it to impact Earth’s atmosphere, and would probably burn up before it reached the planet’s surface.