Truck-sized asteroid buzzed Earth Saturday

Johannesburg: On Saturday, an asteroid the size of a small truck zoomed past Earth four times closer than the moon.

NASA said that the asteroid, named 2013 LR6, was discovered about a day before its closest approach to Earth, which occurred at 04:42 GMT on Saturday about 105 000 km over the Southern Ocean, south of Tasmania, Australia. Fortunately the 10m-wide asteroid posed no threat to the earth. But this is the latest in a parade of visiting celestial objects that has raised awareness of potentially hazardous impacts on the planet. During a Google plus webcast that showed live images of the approaching asteroid, astronomer Gianluca Masi, with the Virtual Telescope project, said that there is theoretically a collision possible between asteroids and planet Earth. To prevent our planet from potentially hazardous impacts, the US space agency and other research organisations, as well as private companies, are working on tracking smaller objects that fly near Earth. ANI