It mightn’t look it, but what you see above is a graphic representation of narrowly-dodged doom.

This, from the Telegraph:

Thw two objects were only identified at the weekend by the Nasa-funded Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, during a routine sky scan.

The first asteroid, christened 2010 RX30, was about 65 feet (20 metres) in diameter and flew past at a distance of 154,000 miles early at 09:51am on Wednesday.

The second, called 2010 RF12, was roughly two-thirds the size of its big brother and estimated to pass within just 49,088 miles of Earth hours later.

“I think this is Mother Nature’s way of firing a shot over the bow and warning Earth-based astronomers that we have a lot of work to do.” Dr Yeomans added.

Hmmm. It would have been very inconvenient had those asteroids collided with Earth yesterday. For a start, the Blog Awards would have taken a hit on the scheduling front.

But then again, I suppose rates of hand-wringing over a number of this year’s contestants would drop significantly.

[Source : Daily Telegraph]