An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
I Guess It Missed
First Blurry Pictures of Near-Miss Asteroid Released
Astronomers have obtained the first images of an asteroid on course to make its closest approach to Earth on Tuesday, showing the space rock is lopsided.
The new images, taken with the Goldstone Solar System Radar Telescope in California’s Mojave Desert, refine estimates of the asteroid’s size.
Named 2007 TU24, the asteroid was estimated to span up to 2,000 feet (610 meters), but is now thought to have a diameter of about 800 feet (250 meters).
Couldn’t we just call it Gomer or something? I really don’t like those long number/letter names.
Scientists at NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have determined that there is no possibility of an impact with Earth in the foreseeable future.
Other radar telescopes will point toward the asteroid as it makes its closest approach to Earth, 334,000 miles (537,500 kilometers), at 3:33 a.m. Eastern time Jan. 29.
Well, since I’m still here and it’s long past the wee hours, I reckon it just passed right on by. Polite like. 
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I personally don’t call it a near miss unless it gets closer to us than the moon.
Yeah…I think if it whooshed by, taking a few gallons of water, or a tree or two, that would be a ‘near miss’. Otherwise….