Asteroid Earth Encounter: A large space rock will buzz over New Zealand at 6:18 a.m. local time (2:18 p.m. EDT, Sunday).
So get your telescopes out and watch the asteroid in the twilight skies.
The 20 meter (60 foot) wide asteroid 2014 RC was discovered on Aug. 31 by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona. The house-sized interplanetary interloper will fly past Earth at a distance of only 20,000 miles (one-tenth of the distance from the Earth to the moon).
The space rock, although small, is approximately the same size as the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013.
Watch the damages triggered by this Chelyabinsk asteroid explosion.
That Chelyabinsk small asteroid produced a deflagration 30 times more powerful than than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The resulting shock wave was just terrifying (thousands of injuries and millions of dollars worth of property damage).
This stone will not hit Earth(even in future). But it will illuminate the sky and is thus a great space phenomenon to watch.
So prepare your telescopes to experience this asteroid earth encounter.
[…] As the meteorite touched down in a secluded and inhabited area, there are no reports of injuries. Was it a small fragment of Asteroid ‘ 2014 RC ‘? […]
[…] This giant fireball crossed the sky just the day that the 2014 RC asteroid will buzz the Earth. […]