Joe Kelley
Administrator
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Asteroid
Based on current projections, the asteroid could swing close enough to our planet to disrupt some orbiting satellites on February 15, 2013. The International Space Station, circling the planet in low-Earth orbit (about 1,200 miles/2,000 kilometers up, or closer), is in no danger, Chodas said.
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If it does hit either in 2020 or later, the asteroid is small enough that it wouldn't be a civilization-destroying hazard. Also, the rock approaches Earth from the south, making Antarctica or the Southern Ocean its most likely targets.
Still, if the asteroid were to hit land, the impact of the 140,000-ton rock would release energy equivalent to a 2.4-megaton explosion, Chodas and other NASA scientists have calculated.
That puts the space rock in the same class as the 1908 Tunguska blast, a mysterious event, likely tied to an asteroid or comet, in which hundreds of square miles of forest in Siberia were leveled. (See "A Hundred Years After Tunguska, Earth Not Ready for Meteors.")
If the asteroid were to strike the ocean, Chodas added, it would produce a tsunami, although "it probably wouldn't be big."
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