Two Comets Just Made Historic Near-Earth Flybys
Two Comets Just Made Historic Near-Earth Flybys https://asteroidday-uploads.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/03100437/Slooh-comet-flybys-thumb.jpg 1200 628 Asteroid Day https://asteroidday-uploads.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/03100437/Slooh-comet-flybys-thumb.jpg
A pair of comets zoomed past Earth over the past few days, and their historic one-two flyby punch was caught on video
. A telescope in Chile operated by the online Slooh Community Observatory captured video of the comets 252P/LINEAR and 2016 BA14 as they cruised past Earth on Monday and Tuesday (March 21 and March 22), respectively.
252P/LINEAR came within 3.5 million miles (5.6 million kilometers) of the planet, and 2016 BA14 got even closer – about 2.1 million miles (3.4 million km), or nine times the Earth-moon distance, according to Slooh representatives. Only one comet in recorded history has come closer to Earth than 2016 BA14, they added – Comet D/1770 L1 (Lexell), which zoomed past at a distance of 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km) in 1770.
