Tracked asteroid whizzes past Earth

A newly discovered asteroid nearly half the size of a football field passed closer to the Earth than TV satellites. Mana Rabiee reports.

A CLOSELY tracked asteroid, about 45 metres wide, whizzed safely past Earth this morning.

Live images from a telescope at the Gingin Observatory in western Australia showed the asteroid looking like a white streak, moving across against a backdrop of black sky.

While the asteroid passed harmlessly past Earth, less than 24 hours earlier a meteor exploded in the Siberian sky with the force of 20 atomic bombs, injuring more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in Chelyabinsk, a Russian city in the Urals of 1 million.

The European Space Agency said its experts had determined there was no connection between the asteroid and the Russian meteor - just cosmic coincidence.

Astronomers said the asteroid's speed and proximity made it a challenge to track, because telescopes had to be aimed precisely or risked missing it.

The asteroid 2012 DA14 is a tiny speck in the centre of the field of view. It was taken in Australia as it headed towards its closest approach to Earth this morning. The image is an overlay of 12 one-minute exposures. The white streaks are images of stars, trailed because the telescope was tracking the motion of the asteroid. AFP PHOTO / NASA- D. HERALD/

The asteroid, dubbed 2012 DA 14, passed around 27,000 kilometres above the Earth at the time of closest approach, about 6.25am today (AEDT), NASA said.

The US space agency had said in a statement on its website that this was "the closest-ever predicted approach to Earth for an object this large.''

Here's the 1979 classic arcade game Asteroids (use cursor keys to move and space bar to fire).

The game has the record for the longest highest score in history - standing for 27 years (see infographic below).

The asteroid isn't nearly as large as the 10-kilometre wide object that took out the dinosaurs, but astronomers said it was large enough that, had it struck the Earth's surface, it could wipe out a large urban area.

However, the asteroid's path kept it well away from Earth and from the ring of communications satellites in Earth's orbit, and NASA said the object's orbit would keep it further from the planet in the foreseeable future.

NASA said the flyby provided a "unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close.''

Among other projects, the Goldstone Solar System Radar, located in California's Mojave Desert, was taking radar images of the asteroid Friday and over the coming days to determine its exact size and shape.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 (the white dot in the middle of picture) taken by the FRAM Telescope in Argentina, part of the GLObal Robotic-telescopes Intelligent Array (GLORIA) project, in advance of its close - but safe - approach to Earth. AFP PHOTO / NASA/GLORIA project/FRAM

The 2012 DA 14 was discovered by chance by astronomers after passing nearby last February.

NASA estimates a smallish asteroid such as 2012 DA 14 flies close to Earth every 40 years on average, but only hits our planet once every 1,200 years.

Astronomers have detected some 9,500 celestial bodies of various sizes that pass near Earth, but they estimate that's only one tenth of what's out there.

Even 2012 DA 14 was almost missed last year because of how quickly it passed through the observable sky, according to Jaime Nomen, one of the astronomers who spotted it from the La Sagra observatory in southern Spain.

Artist's impression of Asteroid 2012DA14 on its way to Earth. Source: NASA

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