An asteroid that's likely as big as several football fields will fly past Earth next week. Astronomers said the space rock will be visible the night of Jan. 29 to amateur astronomers with modest-sized telescopes. Called 2007 TU24, the asteroid was discovered by NASA's Catalina Sky Survey on Oct. 11, 2007. It is estimated to be somewhere between 500 feet (150 meters) to 2,000 feet (610 meters) in diameter. The asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth, 334,000 miles (537,500 kilometers), at 3:33 a.m. Eastern time (12:33 a.m. Pacific time). For comparison, the moon is an average of 239,228 miles (385,000 kilometers) away. "This will be the closest approach by a known asteroid of this size or larger until 2027," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. However, that doesn't mean we won't hear about another flyby of this nature before then. With relatively small space rocks, like this one, astronomers sometimes don't know they're passing through until right before they do. There is no danger of the asteroid striking Earth in the foreseeable future, the scientists said.

But if an asteroid with this size were to hit Earth, the results could be regionally devastating. The impact itself would release about 1,500 megatons of energy, creating a crater about three miles (nearly five kilometers) wide and kicking up loads of debris, according to Yeomans.

View: Full Article | Source: Live Science

Where in the sky would it be visible, and could Britain/Europe see it at what London time? Good if they gave information for lots of places around the world to see... :S

If the world leaders were "smart" they would get together to use this asteroid as a practice run to attempt to destroy it. At least its better than having to do this when one is absolutely going to hit us.
We would learn much by doing so. To me it would have been worth the cost, as it would validate how well protected we may or may not be to an inevitable impact. And we could make progress in changing strategies if the attempt failed.

Any chance that our moon would get tugged by it????

No, the asteroid's gravity is practically nothing compared to that of the Moon's. It will not affect us or the Moon in any way.

Its in the range of hundreds of meters, and its missing us by hundreds of thousands of kilometers. You'd need a decent telescope to see it at all as it came by.

And by my rough calculations, the gravitational effect of this rock at closest approach is less than the gravitation force on the earth or moon from the MOONS OF JUPITER. Its a total non-event. I honestly don't know why people have latched onto this event rather than the similar ones that happen every year or two.

And to Brothers - if something like this could tug the moon, and events like this happen pretty darn regularly, the moon would be looooong gone.

Darn, that makes me wish I had a telescope!! I wanna see it as it passes by! The only thing I actually got to see what Halle-Bopp Comet when it went by the Earth the last time.
Ah, well, I think it's supposed to snow that night where I am anyway, so there's no use pouting over it. :sits in the corner and sulks instead:

It said 3.30 am eastern time. what time is that im in the nordics, but even if someone knows when it is visable in Englands time i can work it out.
Thanks
is it saying i need a telescope to see it.

8:33am Britain time
I duno .

Pacific = -8GMT.

So... 4:33pm GMT time.

=( Day time. Pretty much.

Edit:

Wait. Is 12am before or after 1pm?

Either way, 4:33pm OR am, depending o.o;

Eastern Standard Time is GMT -5. central Standard Time is GMT -6. Pacific Standard Time is GMT -8. 12 AM is midnight, 12 PM is noon.