Worth Looking Up For: Missed it by That Much
An artist’s rendition of an asteroid passing earth.
Take the situation where you’re walking past someone you hardly know in an otherwise empty hallway and aren’t sure whether to say something or just ignore the other person and apply it on a planetary level. This happens fairly regularly with the earth and a diverse assortment of rocky passers-by.
One such asteroid, called 2014 DX110, will fly past the earth at a distance of 217,000 miles, bringing it closer to us than the moon. The 90-ft space rock is expected to pass between 4 and 5 p.m. today and, although it won’t be visible, Slooh Community Observatory will be hosting a webcast of the event. Tomorrow, 33-ft 2014 EC will pass even closer, just 48,000 miles away.
EC and DX110 are just one of many asteroids in a series of visitors that included the famous Chelyabinsk meteor that flamboyantly crashed in Russia last year. Neither, however, is likely to strike down and no other asteroids currently detected are predicted to approach even eight times the distance to the moon.
For current data on all interplanetary interlopers visit neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/.
![Photo of Marianne Cowherd](https://chscommunicator.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/IMG_7769-1-316x475.jpg)