Two Near Misses

Asteroids came close to hitting both Earth and Mars the past two days. Yesterday, 2007 TU24 whizzed past Earth just beyond the orbit of the Moon. Today, 2007 WD5 missed Mars by roughly 13,000 miles. In cosmic terms, both are near misses.

Neither asteroid poses a threat to either world in the near future, but they still might be cause for some concern. The 2007 in each designation means these two bodies were only discovered by astronomers last year. Part of the reason for that is both bodies are relatively small. Had either struck Earth, it would not have ended life on Earth, or even human civilization. Still, had either struck Earth, the result would've been a natural disaster of the first order.

The fact that astronomers only found these two last year, coupled with the fact that thousands of these small mountains are flying around the inner Solar System, suggests the current efforts to find and track them all need to be strengthened.