Asteroid 2005 YU55 Passes the Earth
On November. 8, 2011, the asteroid 2005 YU55 passed through our moon's orbit. Thankfully we suffer no negative effects form this occurrence, but if the asteroid had hit Earth there would be varying degrees of damage depending on its impact site. If YU55 had hit land it would have caused a category nine earthquake and a city-size crater; however, if the impact site had been the ocean then the result would have been a tsunami. An asteroid hitting the sea would cause all the environmental damage an asteroid hitting land would but the energy being passed through a medium like water would cause mega-tsunamis capable of wiping out many different areas. Objects like YU55 are so faint and fast that they are hard to detect. This is a frightening realizations because it means that other potentially hazardous may still be out there. Perhaps an asteroid hitting the Earth in 2012 isn't such a ludicrous notion after all.
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