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Asteroid 2007 TU24: No Danger to Earth

Bad Astronomy
By Phil Plait
Jan 25, 2008 6:05 PMNov 5, 2019 7:02 AM

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I am fed up. For those who haven't been following this saga, some doomsayers have been claiming that an asteroid named 2007 TU24 poses a grave threat to Earth. These fearmongers are completely wrong, scaring lots of others, and are apparently unwilling to listen to reason. The videos still make outrageously bad claims and the websites still make utterly false statements. I decided to make my own video so that the truth can get out to as many people as possible. To be clear: TU24 will miss us by hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and the electric connection claims are wrong. This asteroid will pass us by, and sail on into the night. As for me, now that the book is submitted -- and the irony of finishing a book about cosmic catastrophes while debunking false claims of such has not been lost on me -- I'm off to The Amaz!ng Meeting 5.5 in Florida, where I will meet with other skeptics and critical thinkers, and figure out how in the world -- or off it -- we can stop this kind of nonsense.

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