No, a Giant Asteroid Isn’t Going to “Skim” Earth on Friday

Asteroid 2014 YB35 will safely pass Earth at 4.5 million km on the morning of Friday, March 27. (Composite image by J. Major showing asteroid Lutetia imaged by ESA’s Rosetta, Earth and Moon imaged by NASA’s Galileo, and the Milky Way imaged by ESO and Serge Brunier.)

There are ways to report on occasional close approaches by near-Earth objects (NEOs) that convey the respectful awareness of their presences and the fact that our planet shares its neighborhood with many other objects, large and small… and that sometimes their paths around the Sun bring them unnervingly close to our own.
Then there’s just straight-up over-sensationalism intended to drum up page views by scaring the heck out of people, regardless of facts.
Apparently this is what’s happened regarding the upcoming close approach by NEO 2014 YB35. An asteroid of considerable (but definitely not unprecedented) size – estimated 440-990 meters in diameter, or around a third of a mile across – YB35 will pass by Earth on Friday, March 27, coming as close as 11.7 times the distance between Earth and the Moon at 06:20 UTC.
11.7 lunar distances. That’s 4.5 million kilometers, or almost 2.8 million miles. Cosmically close, sure, but far from “skimming”…and certainly with no danger of an impact or any of the nasty effects that would be a result thereof. None. Zero. Zilch. NASA isn’t concerned, and you shouldn’t be either.

I typically wouldn’t even bother writing up something like this, except that I have been seeing posts shared among acquaintances on Facebook and Twitter that refer to sensationalist articles portraying the event as a frightening near-miss by an apocalyptic object. I won’t link to those articles here but in short they focus heavily on the destructive nature of an object the size of YB35 were it to hit Earth and how it would wipe out “all species” of life on our planet wholesale, and how YB35 is “on course” with Earth’s orbit.

Universaltoday