JPL Discovers 7 Sizable Asteroids That Could Pose Threat to Earth
A Jet Propulsion Laboratory sky survey has found 5,000 new asteroids, including seven big enough and close enough to eventually pose a threat to Earth, astronomer Eleanor F. Helin reported Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Boston. The discovery brings to 99 the number of such objects, which are defined as being at least 3,000 feet in diameter and passing within 5 million miles of Earth.
None of the 99 is an immediate threat, Helin said, but so far only 10% of the sky has been searched by the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking Project.
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