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AN ASTEROID of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday .

2009 DD45, estimated to be between 21m and 47m across, raced by at 3.44pm (CAT), the Planetary Society and astronomers’ blogs reported. The gap was just 72 000km, or a fifth of the distance between Earth and the Moon, and only twice the height of satellites in geosynchronous orbit, the website space.com said.

The estimated size is similar to that of an asteroid or comet that exploded above Tunguska, Siberia, on June 30, 1908, flattening 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2000km².

2009 DD45 was spotted last Saturday by astronomers in Australia, and verified by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre (MPC), which catalogues solar system rocks.

The closest flyby listed by the MPC is 2004 FU162, a small asteroid about 6m across which came within about 6500km of us in March 2004. — Sapa-AFP
We almost got wtfpwned.