"The sky is falling, the sky is falling." Remember the children's book, Chicken Little?" Well in the past couple of months, things really have been falling from the sky! The latest to fall from the sky, an asteroid named YU55.

An asteroid slightly bigger than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier will zoom by Earth inside the orbit of the moon Tuesday, Nov. 8, but it poses no danger of smashing into our planet, scientists say.

The asteroid 2005 YU55, which is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) across, will make its closest approach to Earth at 6:28 p.m. EST (2328 GMT) today. At that point, the space rock will be traveling at about 29,000 mph and be about 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) from Earth — closer than the moon, which orbits 238,864 miles (384,499 km) from us on average.

How many children born today will be named YU55? I bet more than one!

But seriously, this gets me to thinking, one day something will crash to earth. Then what?

 


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