A near miss

LONDON, DEC. 23. A 50-meter wide asteroid capable of wiping out a city district missed the earth by just 800,000 kilometers yesterday, just twice the distance to the moon and a near miss in astronomical terms, British astronomers said.

Travelling at more than 20 miles per second, the asteroid swept through space just above London yesterday at midnight, visible through a powerful telescope.

If the object, nicknamed 2000 Ya, had hit the earth, it would have made ``a real mess of a city like London,'' Mr. Robin Scagell, vice-president of the Society for Popular Astronomy, said.

- AFP

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Section  : International
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