Asteroid coming exceedingly close to Earth, but will miss

By MARCIA DUNN
yesterday

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid the size of a delivery truck will whip past Earth on Thursday night, one of the closest such encounters ever recorded.

NASA insists it will be a near miss with no chance of the asteroid hitting Earth.

NASA said Wednesday that this newly discovered asteroid will zoom 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) above the southern tip of South America. That’s 10 times closer than the bevy of communication satellites circling overhead.

The closest approach will occur at 7:27 p.m. EST (9:27 p.m. local.)

Even if the space rock came a lot closer, scientists said most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, with some of the bigger pieces possibly falling as meteorites.

More:
https://apnews.com/article/science-planets-south-america-asteroids-a4c9c750993c3eb2cc481556cd87a958