The asteroid which came only 18,000 miles from earth Friday was an historic event, but it was overshadowed by the meteorite strikes caught on several videos in Russia, which injured more than 1,000 people.
I went to the Discovery Museum Science and Space Center in Sacramento to get a little science class refresher.
To break it down: an asteroid is a large space rock, a meteoroid is a smaller rock travelling through space, and when it breaks through our atmosphere the streak it creates is called a meteor. If any of those chunks hit the ground - it's a meteorite.
In conclusion (which was always my favorite phrase to write in school because it meant we were about done with the paper!) Russians saw meteors, and then their buildings were damaged by meteorites. Australia missed being hit by a baseball field-sized asteroid.
And for the record: Scientists have been discussing for several years how to prepare for the chance that an asteroid could get on a collision course towards our planet, however remote. European Space Agency spokesman Bernhard von Weyhe says experts from Europe, the U.S. and Russia are working on way to spot potential threats sooner and avert them.
But don't expect a Hollywood-style mission to fly a nuclear bomb into space and blow up the asteroid, like the movie ``Armageddon.''
``It's a global challenge and we need to find a solution together,'' he said. ``But one thing's for sure, the Bruce Willis `Armageddon' method won't work.''
And I thought Ben Affleck was the answer to most of our problems…
