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NASA Says Bus-Size Asteroid Narrowly Missed Earth Thursday

VOA News

   Scientists at the U.S. space agency NASA say a small asteroid --
   roughly the size of a bus -- passed close to Earth on Thursday, flying
   just 22,000 kilometers above the surface, within the orbit of
   geostationary satellites that ring the planet.

   While the proximity to Earth might raise alarm, scientists at NASA's
   Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California said even if the
   asteroid had entered the earth's atmosphere, it almost certainly would
   have broken up and become a bright meteor.

   The asteroid, known as 2020 SW, is about five to ten meters wide and
   was first discovered on September 18 by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky
   Survey in Arizona.

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