Sunday, June 30, 2013

Large asteroid safely zips past Earth, dragging its own moon along

Large asteroid safely zips past Earth, dragging its own moon along
Just when you thought it was safe to venture outside. 
An asteroid dubbed 1998 QE2 whizzed past Earth at the end of May, 2013, with its own moon in tow.

"#asteroidQE2 has sailed harmlessly past Earth," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted around 5 p.m. ET.

It got within about 3.6 million miles of our planet. That's close relatively given the vastness of space, but still more than 15 times the distance from wherever you are to our moon.

The fly-by had astronomers less fearful and more excited about getting the "best look at this asteroid ever," according to NASA.

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