Newly found asteroid 'narrowly' misses Earth

17 Jun 2002

A newly found asteroid will pass within 279,000 miles of the Earth, a hair's breadth in astronomical terms. The object, designated 1996 J-A-One, is traveling through space at about 10 miles per second. The discovery was made this week by astronomers on Mount Lemmon, outside Tucson, Arizona. The asteroid -- about a third of mile in diameter -- is the largest ever observed in such close proximity to the Earth.