Duck! Asteroid skims past Earth today

Newly discovered asteroid 2009 QK9 will pass at 4.3 lunar distances today. That's just over 1 million miles or 1.6M kilometers; a hair's-breadth, by astronomical standards. (Anything within 10 lunar-orbit diameters is considered noteworthy.)

Approximate diameter:	98 meters (H=22.685) [football-field size]
Closest Earth approach:	4.33 LD at 0401 UTC on 30 Aug. - Note: JPL reports an approach uncertainty of 20 minutes.
Inside ten LD of Earth:	27 Aug. until 1 Sept.
Data based on:	JPL SSD orbit solution #1 downloaded yesterday based on 21 observations spanning 1 day
Optical observation:	observed from 7 locations during 1.5932 days discovered at 0612 UTC on 21 Aug. by LINEAR last observed at 2026 UTC yesterday by Guidestar Obs.
Link:	JPL Small-Body Database

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/index.html