Large asteroid to approach Earth Nov 8

PanARMENIAN.Net - A large asteroid called 2005 YU55 is expected to come within approximately 201,700 miles of Earth on Tuesday, November 8, according to NASA. That's slightly less than the distance from Earth to the moon.

Asteroids often pass this close, but most are tiny. 2005 YU55 is at least 1,300 feet wide - larger than an aircraft carrier, according to radar measurements. The last time an asteroid this big passed by was in 1976, and the next one scientists know of won't be until 2028, ABC News says.

Discovered December 28, 2005 by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Program near Tucson Arizona, the object has been shown to be a very dark, nearly spherical object 400 meters in diameter.

Since the asteroid will approach the Earth from the sunward direction, it will be a daylight object until the time of closest approach. The best time for new ground-based optical and infrared observations will be late in the day on November 8, after 21:00 hours UT from the eastern Atlantic and western Africa zone. A few hours after its close Earth approach, it will become generally accessible for optical and near-IR observations but will provide a challenging target because of its rapid motion across the sky.

Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance and an event of this type will not happen again until 2028 when asteroid (153814) 2001 WN5 will pass to within 0.6 lunar distances, NASA says.