You may have already heard this, but if not, it is somewhat exciting news. There is an asteroid, about 150 feet in size, that will pass within about 17,000 miles of the Earth on February 15, 2013. Now you may be thinking that 17,000 miles is a long distance and it is compared to distances on Earth. This distance does, after all, take you about 3/4 of the way around the Earth. However, 17,000 miles is closer than geosynchronous satellites (like your Dish Network or Direct TV satellite). Here's a link with a few more details.
Asteroid Close Encounter
Yet this satellite analogy still doesn't convey to students how close this asteroid will actually come to passing the Earth. In the article I linke, Bill Nye relates this distance to a time. Doing so we find that this asteroid only misses the Earth by 15 minutes! 15 minutes!!! That's it!!! I was telling this to my students this week and by relating the closeness in terms of time they finally realized how close this really is.
Even if this asteroid were to hit Earth, it wouldn't destroy all life. It simply isn't big enough. It would, however, cause considerably damage. If it struck a large city, it would pretty much flatten that city. If it were to hit water, the more likely scenario, it would create a very large tsunami wave that would destroy coastal regions.
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