Asteroid to Buzz Earth this Week

Source - Space Weather News for Oct. 10, 2017: http://spaceweather.com

ASTEROID TO BUZZ EARTH THIS WEEK: Four years ago, a house-sized asteroid tore through the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, and exploded.  Shock waves shattered windows and knocked down onlookers as fragments of the disintegrating space rock peppered the Ural countryside. This week an asteroid about the same size is approaching Earth. It will not hit our planet, but it's coming very close. On Oct. 12, 2017, the speeding space rock, named "2012 TC4," will skim just above the zone of Earth's geosynchronous communications satellites and briefly become a target for amateur telescopes.

Learn more about the flyby on today's edition of Spaceweather.com

Above: An artist's concept of asteroid 2012 TC4 flying past Earth on Oct. 12, 2017