This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 Monday showed it 3.6 lunar distances (860,000 miles or 1.38 million km) from Earth. STORY HIGHLIGHTS The closest approach will occur at 6:28 p.m. ET Tuesday The asteroid will pass within 202,000 miles of Earth, NASA says The space rock poses no threat of an Earth collision (CNN) -- An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier will pass Earth to within eight-tenths of the distance of the moon Tuesday, the closest approach to Earth of an object this size in more than 30 years. The closest approach will occur at 6:28 p.m. ET when the asteroid passes within 202,000 miles of our planet, NASA said. The space agency classified the asteroid as a "potentially hazardous object." If the asteroid were to crash into Earth, it could cause a 4,000 megaton blast and a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, according to scientists at Purdue University. If it fell into the ocean, it could cause a 70-foot high tsunami within 60 miles of the crash site, the experts ...
A team of international scientists are planning to drill into the Earth's mantle in an attempt to answer questions about the origins and evolution of life. The drills will need to get through around 6 km of oceanic crust to reach the mantle. Humans have reached the moon and are planning to return samples from Mars , but when it comes to exploring the land deep beneath our feet, we have only scratched the surface of our planet. This may be about to change with a $1 billion mission to drill 6 km (3.7 miles) beneath the seafloor to reach the Earth's mantle -- a 3000 km-thick layer of slowly deforming rock between the crust and the core which makes up the majority of our planet -- and bring back the first ever fresh samples. It could help answer some of our biggest questions about the origins and evolution of Earth itself, with almost all of the sea floor and continents that make up the Earth´s surface originating from the mantle. Geologists involved in th...
Tom Cruise climbs to death-defying heights in the new 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,' and we have the kick-ass trailer! Yep, that's really him up there on the world's tallest building in Dubai… In 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,' Tom's Ethan Hunt is joined by a new IMF team ( Jeremy Renner , Paula Patton and Simon Pegg ) as they face their most impossible mission yet. After the Kremlin is destroyed, the IMF is implicated in a global terrorist bombing plot and shut down. "Ghost Protocol" is initiated, meaning that Hunt and his rogue team must go undercover -- completely off the grid with no help from the U.S. government -- to clear their organization's name and track down the real terrorists out to incite global nuclear war. Produced by J.J. Abrams (who directed the last 'Mission: Impossible installment) and directed by Brad Bird ('The Incredibles'), 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol' features scene...