Won't have to worry anymore about your recent portfolio losses if one of these slam down in da vicinity:
Tunguska-sized space rock buzzes Earth
Updated 11:57 03 March 2009 by Rachel Courtland An asteroid about the size of the one that levelled the forest in Tunguska, Siberia, a century ago flew past Earth on Monday - well within the Moon's orbit. The risk of a future impact with the object is not yet known. The asteroid, dubbed 2008 DD45, whizzed just 72,000 kilometres above the Earth's surface. That is less than a fifth of the distance to the Moon and just twice the distance to geosynchronous satellites.
Some 6100 objects have been discovered passing within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) of Earth (1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun). Of those, more than 1000 have been classified as potentially hazardous, because they pass within 0.05 AU of Earth. DD45, which passed just 0.00048 AU from Earth, is one of a growing list of potentially hazardous asteroids that have been spotted by astronomers in advance of their closest approach.
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