Ateroid near earth
While the Apophis asteroid has little chance of hitting Earth in 2036, there is a car sized asteroid nearing Earth today! Is it going to hit?

No, NASA scientists from Asteroid Watch program say that there is no threat from 2011 CA7. The asteroid flew within about 64,300 miles of the third rock from the sun this afternoon around 2:25 p.m. EST, and it was actually the second one in the past 5 days. On February 4, the smaller 2011 CQ1 was a mere 3,400 miles from Earth. Neither asteroid hit Earth. For comparison, consider that the moon is 238,000 miles away from the planet, so these space rocks were much closer than that.

These types of smaller asteroids flying near Earth are quite common. In fact, NASA predicts that there are close encounters nearly daily. Asteroids that could be potentially hazardous to the planet must be at least 490 feet wide. That means that the Apophis Asteroid 900 feet is one of the larger rocks that does pose a threat to the world.

A Russian report has predicted that the huge space rock could hit Earth on April 13, 2036. Of course this dire prediction has garnered lots of attention from scientists and others. Thankfully the chances of a true impact are still quite slim. In fact, Donald Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office said that the chance is just 1-in-250,000.


Comment: To understand more about real chances of impacts the reader might wish to read these articles:
Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls
Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!


Those are pretty small odds in the case of the Apophis Asteroid. However, today's close encounter with 2011 CA7 is the closets known encounter with an asteroid ever. Are you concerned about a catastrophic collision on Earth?