Asteroids miss with astronomers

Close brushes actually fairly common

The only thing that was particularly unusual about two asteroids that zipped past Earth September 8, astronomers say, was that anybody noticed them.

Within hours of each other on September 8, two small asteroids whizzed past Earth within the moon’s orbit. Scientists say such occurrences are probably fairly common. NASA

Such close approaches — one of the asteroids passed within 79,000 kilometers of Earth — actually happen several times a week, according to scientists’ calculations.