On March 23, 1989, the asteroid 4581 Asclepius—apparently about the size of a mountain—came close to colliding with the earth.
“On the cosmic scale of things, that was a close call.”
—scientist
Actually, he was an amateur astronomer. But he’s also a doctor of some kind. And he was “working on a NASA project,” according to the LA Times.
Really, LA Times?! Why all the ambiguity? Do we really need more conspiracy theory fodder?!
Anyway, “scientist,” seemed funnier than Dr. Henry Holt… of unknown expertise.
Nobody even noticed the thing until 9 days later, but the near miss was a really good thing: had it occurred, the collision would’ve been roughly the size of forty thousand “Little Boys” (the bomb the USA dropped on Hiroshima in World War II).
That’s worth celebrating!
“Earth” by Meredith Garstin is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0. Thanks to Openverse from WordPress.org for help finding great images!