NASA’s new early warning system spots incoming Halloween asteroid

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Source: Metro

NASA’s new ‘early warning’ asteroid-monitoring system has spotted an asteroid hurtling towards us – not far off the size of the one which exploded over Russia in 2013, injuring 1600.

The ‘Halloween’ asteroid – which was spotted just five days ago – will pass Earth around 310,000 miles away today, around 1.3 times further away than the moon.

The rock, named 2016 UR36, was spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on October 25 – and NASA’s new ‘Scout’ system quickly plotted its potential flight paths.

The system worked out that the asteroid is between five and 25 metres across – the Chelyabinsk asteroid in 2013 was 20m – and was due to pass in five days.

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/10/31/nasas-new-early-warning-system-spots-incoming-halloween-asteroid-6224479/

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[Towlie]

1. "...will pass Earth around 310,000 miles away?" Well then it's not "incoming" is it?

I saw that headline too, and when I did my reaction was "Clickbait!"