September 30, 2004
Quick, Getafix, Toutatis is Here
Yesterday saw the approach of the asteroid Toutatis, the closest approach of any extraterrestrial body of comparable size this century.
Despite not venturing any closer to us than 4x the distance between the Earth and the Moon, I think it might be time that more people on the planet showed a little extra concern at potential impacts from this type of object - did you see anything on the news about this particular encounter? Take a look at the Torino Scale and recognise that a category red collision is due, possibly sooner rather than later…
And by the way, the title of this entry refers to the rather wonderful Asterix cartoons - Toutatis is the Gaulish god of the village!
Filed under: Space
