Asteroid DA14 — discovered by Spanish astronomers only last February — is "such a close call" that it is a "celestial torpedo across the bow of spaceship Earth," Schweickart said in a phone interview Thursday.
NASA's deep-space antenna in California's Mojave Desert was ready to collect radar images, but not until eight hours after the closest approach given the United States' poor positioning for the big event.
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Online:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html
B612 Foundation: http://b612foundation.org/
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