Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth in March

Whoa. Too close for comfort!...

An asteroid could get as close as just 11,000 miles from the Earth surface when it passes by our planet on March 5. WSJ's Monika Auger reports. Photo: NASA

Wall Street Journal

Asteroid 2004 BL86 Has a Small Moon

If you haven't heard by now, there was an asteroid that flew-by close to earth yesterday and as we've discovered, even an asteroid can have its own moon! Actually, in 1993, a tiny moon called Dactyl was discovered orbiting the large asteroid Ida and since then, several other moons have been discovered orbiting asteroids. 

This recent one, called the Asteroid 2004 BL86 that flew by Earth yesterday, is approximately 1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small moon approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across with it. The radar images of the asteroid were taken at its closest distance to Earth - about 800,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers, or 3.1 times the distance from Earth to the moon).
The asteroid fly-by vid below is a compilation from 20 images taken Monday by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California...

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Info source: jpl.nasa