Where did that spring from? (Image: Joe Tucciarone/SPL)
A TINY asteroid that buzzed Earth last week highlighted our planet’s vulnerability to objects whose peculiar orbits put them in a game of hide-and-seek with us.
An Earth-based telescope spotted the 10-metre space rock hurtling our way just three days before a near miss on 13 January, when it flew by at just one-third of the distance to the moon (see Object headed towards Earth an asteroid, not junk). The asteroid is never expected to hit Earth and would burn up before hitting the ground in any case. But its unusual…
