Juuuust A Bit Outside

Close, but no cigar:

An asteroid up to 2,000ft (600m) long will skim past the Earth during rush hour on Tuesday morning in a close encounter unlikely to be matched for two decades.

Asteroid 2007 TU24 will be only 334,000 miles (540,000km) away at its closest point to the Earth, about 1.4 times the distance between the planet and the Moon.

“This will be the closest approach by a known asteroid of this size or larger until 2027,” said Don Yeomans, of Nasa’s Near-Earth Object Programme Office.

“There is no reason for concern. On the contrary, Mother Nature is providing us an excellent opportunity to perform scientific observations.”

Amateur astronomers are expected to train their telescopes towards the asteroid and should, weather permitting, see it. It should be visible through telescopes of 7.6cm (3in) or more as a bright moving dot.

I suppose this means I have to go to Cleveland tomorrow night after all. Rats.