Happening Now: An Asteroid And Its Moon Sail Past Earth
First Radar Images of 1998 QE2 NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR The pair will come their closest at 4:59 pm ET today. An asteroid is sailing past Earth today, and it's bringing along some luggage. At 4:59 pm ET, asteroid 1998 QE2 will be a mere 3.6 million miles away from our home planet. And it's not alone. It is bringing with it a moon that orbits it as it flies along its own path. Okay, "mere" is an exaggeration. It will come to about a distance that's 15 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. The asteroid is not a threat to Earth, NASA says. Astronomers first discovered 1998 QE2 in 1998, hence its name. They only discovered that it had an orbiting moon on May 29, however, when radar images showed the moon as a smudge by its side. Among asteroids near Earth, only 16 percent that are 200 meters (655 feet) in...