National Post

Near-miss with a 130K-ton asteroid is graphic proof Earth’s in a celestial ‘shooting gallery’: Apollo astronaut
A 45-metre asteroid hurtled toward Earth’s backyard, destined Friday to make the closest known flyby for a rock of its size.

NASA promised the asteroid would miss Earth by 27,600 kilometres, avoiding catastrophe. But that’s still closer than many communication and weather satellites; scientists insisted these, too, would be spared.

Asteroid 2012 DA14, as it’s called, is too small to see with the naked eye even at its closest approach around 2:25 p.m. EST, over the Indian Ocean near Sumatra. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech; ESA - DAVE HERALD/Getty Images)