Earth dodged a bullet today (Asteroid near miss)

ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2008) — Earth dodged a bullet today, when asteroid TU24 passed within 540,000 kilometers of our planet, which is just down the street on a galactic scale. Tomorrow, another asteroid – 2007 WD5 – will zip past Mars at a distance of only 26,000 kilometers away. Will we dodge the bullet the next time a near-Earth object (NEO) hurtles dangerously close to our home planet?


To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event, when an exploding asteroid leveled 2000 square kilometers of Siberian forest, The Planetary Society today kicked off a year-long focus on Target Earth. The asteroid believed responsible for the cataclysm on June 30, 1908 became a fireball from the sky and knocked pine trees over like matchsticks near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. Such an explosion today over more populated areas could lay waste an entire city.

“The solar system is a busy place,” said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of The Planetary Society. “In fact, we live in a dangerous neighborhood, and keeping track of NEOs is like organizing a Neighborhood Watch in our corner of space.”

Earth has been hit by NEOs many times in the past; ancient craters are still visible in landforms around the world. The famed Meteor Crater in Arizona and Canada’s Lake Manicouagan are only two examples.

more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080129212723.htm

After all, even Pluto is "just down the street on a galactic scale".

on a galactic scale.

At its closest approach to Earth, Pluto is around 29 AU away. I make that around two hundred-millionths of the galactic diameter. So I reckon it has to be inside your bedroom, and probably under the sheets.

... I'd been blaming Mrs.Nihil for putting her cold feet on me
when it was really just a rock dusted in frozen methane ...

somewhere eating cake and strumming a guitar if he did.