Asteroid Discovered After a Near Miss

Astronomers discovered a new asteroid, four days after it made a near miss of the Earth. The object, now called 2002 EM7, was between 40 and 80 metres across and missed the planet by a distance of only 480,200 kilometres – the 9th-closest brush ever recorded; roughly the distance from the Earth to the moon. Had it actually hit the Earth, it could have flattened a city and caused thousands of deaths.

New Clues About the Great Dying

Scientists know that approximately 250 million years something wiped out almost all the life on Earth; however, what exactly happened has remained a mystery – was it a volcano, asteroid strike, or something else? New evidence has been found in pockets of gas deep inside rocks that were formed during the time of the event. The gas contains higher than normal levels of a specific type of helium and argon which is more common in space, so something must have brought the material to Earth, probably an asteroid.