An asteroid the size of the Rock of Gibraltar will graze past the Earth on April 19. At a distance of 1.1 million miles, there’s really no danger that it’ll hit us (so they say).
(This is not a picture of the actual Asteroid 2014-JO25; this is a random asteroid from the inter-verse.)
This reminds me that while the current White House administration (cough cough) has promised NASA funding to continue working on a mission to Mars, they’ve cut funding for the “Asteroid Redirect Mission.” According to the Huffington Post:
“That project would have included a robotic attempt to rendezvous with an asteroid, then collect and haul a giant boulder from it for future study by a manned crew. Part of this plan was also to redirect the asteroid’s trajectory away from any path that would bring it close to Earth.”
More here on asteroid capture and landing projects.
