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Article: Okay, so they were a little off: astronomers tone down an asteroid warning but see more in our future.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- March 23, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In a close call with a close call, sky-watching asteroid hunters last week warned darkly that a mile-wide hunk of primeval rock looping through the inner solar system, circling the sun every 21 months, might loop right smack into Earth on October 26, 2028, with horrendous consequences. As civilization faced possible calamity, another word came a day later from astronomers: Oh, never mind.
The stone, given the name 1997 XF11 by the University of Arizona astronomers, who found it last December 6, will probably miss by at least 600,000 miles--about three times as far away as the moon. That is closer than anything this large has come to whacking Earth in the last few ...