Video: Asteroid 2012 DA14′s safe passage near Earth on February 15

Asteroid 2012 DA14 – an object about half the length of a football field – will pass Earth on February 15, 2013. Watch NASA videos about this event.


Small near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 is generating a lot of buzz, and no wonder. On February 15, 2013, it’ll pass very close to Earth – within 17,200 miles (about 28,000 kilometers). It’ll pass inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites. NASA has done a good job, in our opinion, getting information out to the public about this object and its 2013 passage. A couple of recent videos can be seen below. The first is narrated by Dr. Donald Yeomans of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He is a senior research scientist and manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office and so is uniquely qualified to speak about past, present and future passages of near-Earth asteroids.


fuente, earthsky