Asteroid Near-Miss

Well, I say "near-miss"… In reality, asteroid 2008 AF3 passed by the earth last night at just over the moon’s distance away. While 475,000 kilometres away may sound an awful long way, in astronomical terms that’s pretty damned close. And what I found really worrying about this was the fact that the asteroid was totally unknown until three days ago. Not a lot of time in which to kiss your arse goodbye if a big one really hits the earth…