Asteroid 2012 DA 14 was discovered a few weeks ago: a 40-meter wide rock on an orbit that brings it pretty close to Earth. Next year, on February 16, it will pass about 27,000 km from the center of the Earth (roughly 21,000 km from the surface), which is pretty close, but still a clear miss. I wrote about this asteroid earlier this week, and the comments have been pouring in. People are asking if it will hit (no), if the Earth's gravity will change the orbit of DA 14 (yes), have astronomers accounted for that (yes), and will it ever hit us sometime in the future (we don't know; see below). One commenter, Chris Laurel, created a wonderful photo-realistic animation of the pass of the asteroid using software called Cosmographia, and, well, I think it will answer most people's questions and fears:
[embed width="610"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7YTmS6U8WM[/embed]
Isn't that cool? I did ...
