Albert Einstein once said that "God does not play dice with the world." Many people were inclined to challenge that judgment this month when two extraterrestrial objects intruded on our daily lives, one sideswiping the planet, the other impacting in Russia.
While the first visitor passed a "mere" 27,000 km from Earth, the latter was the largest space rock to hit our planet since 1908. Or so we think. Earth is peppered with space debris daily and while most of it is too small to notice, larger chunks might be making their way to Earth's surface, but in areas so remote no one ever notices.
Scientists have been watching asteroid 2012 DA14 for about a year since it was discovered by Spanish astronomers at the Observatorio Astronomico de La Sagra in February 2012. Forty-five meters in diameter and weighing 143,000 tons, it is in an Earth-like orbit, circling the sun every 366 days. A year ago it passed 2.6 million km from Earth, but since its orbit is more elliptical than that of Earth, the distance changes.