“Asteroid a MILE wide to hurtle past Earth in 48 HOURS - as experts warn of MASS EXTINCTION”.
“A COLOSSAL asteroid hurtling through space is feared to be one of the biggest EVER to threaten a collision with Earth.”
The Science Times reports more soberly:
“An asteroid that is approximately one-mile wide will come very close to the Earth on May 14, according to NASA's Near Earth Object watch. While an asteroid of this size would be cataclysmic if it hit the Earth, this one will pass safely by.”
“There is no indication that 1999 FN53 will hit Earth or even come close enough to affect it in any way. It is also not even on NASA's Near Earth Objects risk table, which lists objects with impact probably as low as one in 9 million.”
In fact, the asteroid will be passing by at 26.4 lunar distances, or about 10 million kilometers.away.
Let us put that in perspective –a Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 passed within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. It didn’t hit or cause gravitational effects on the Earth. And NASA commented on that near miss:
“Although classified as a potentially hazardous object, 2005 YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over at least the next 100 years. However, this will be the closest approach to date by an object this large that we know about in advance and an event of this type will not happen again until 2028 when asteroid (153814) 2001 WN5 will pass to within 0.6 lunar distances.”