The Hindu : Close encounter with asteroid today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 18, 2002

National

National

Close encounter with asteroid today

NEW DELHI AUG. 17. Sky gazers will be able to enjoy a rare sight tomorrow when an asteroid — the celestial bodies which are thought to have destroyed dinosaurs after colliding with the earth — comes ``very close'' to earth.

``Asteroids usually remain in certain regions of the solar system, but some of them are pushed into the orbits. Their orbits sometimes lie close to the earth or may even cross the earth's orbit. But this newly found asteroid — discovered on July 14 — has absolutely no chance of hitting the earth,'' said the Nehru Planetarium director, N. Rathnasree.

Dinosaurs were thought to be extinct from the earth after such an asteroid-hit, Ms. Rathnasree said adding lunar lake in Maharashtra was also thought to be the result of such a hit.

The burning of a meteorite in sky recently caused forest fires in a Russian region.

``The asteroid — 2002 NY40 — would just pass near enough, a little less than one-and-a-half times the distance to the moon and offers us the chance of viewing it through binoclulars,'' she said adding the closest encounter was set for tomorrow.

The last time such a close encounter took place was on August 31, 1925.

However, the asteroid monitoring programme at that time was not so intense and no one knew of the encounter until much later. — PTI

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