Asteroid Close Call is a 'Celestial Torpedo'

[Razor]

Asteroid Close Call is a 'Celestial Torpedo'

WASHINGTON, February 15 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) An asteroid about the size of a 15-story building that will "narrowly" streak by the planet Earth on Friday ought to serve as a warning that a serious collision is 'a matter of time,' said former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart on Thursday.
The asteroid 2012 DA14, Schweickart said in an interview with RIA Novosti, "is a celestial torpedo shooting across our spaceship bow and it ought to get our attention, it should tell us this happens all the time."
"We get hit on average every 300 years or so, and we don't live that long, so we don't think about it," he said. "But there's a million objects about 30 meters (98 feet) in diameter or larger that cross the earth's orbit, and we've found less than one percent of them, so a significant collision is just a matter of time."

"It's not going to hit the Earth," said Cole.
The asteroid measures 150 feet (46 meters) in diameter, and its closest point to Earth will come at approximately 2:25 p.m. EST (1925 GMT) Friday, when it will be roughly 17,200 miles (27,681 kilometers) away.
That is closer than some man-made satellites orbiting the earth at about 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers).
It will be the closest approach by a "killer" space rock in more than a century, roughly the same size as an asteroid that hit Siberia in 1908 and leveled trees over 825 square miles (2,137 square km). (i.e. Tunguska event, roughly estimated to be equal to nuke of 10-15 MT)

Source: RIA Novosti