Friday, around 2:24 p.m. EST, an asteroid half the size of a football field is set to buzz Earth, coming much closer to us than the moon and even closer than some communication and weather satellites.
The asteroid, named 2012 DA14, was discovered last February by a Spanish team of astronomers. Then, it was 2.7 million miles away. The flying boulder is about 150 feet across, weighing some 130,000 metric
This is the first time they've spotted an object this large about to come so close, Mazanek said.
At its closest, asteroid 2012 DA14 will rocket past at 17,450 mph about 17,200 miles above Sumatra in the eastern Indian Ocean, NASA says. It won't be visible to the naked eye.
By comparison, satellites in farthest geostationary orbit are about 22,000 miles overhead, while the International Space Station orbits at an altitude of 240 miles. Even at its closest, the moon is a relatively remote 239,000 miles from Earth.
NASA says about 499,999 other asteroids of similar size out there in our solar system. That we know of.
