End of world (nearly).AN asteroid capable of wiping out a city narrowly missed the Earth, it was revealed yesterday.The 50-yard wide space rock appeared unexpectedly above London at midnight on Friday. Travelling at more than 20 miles per second, it missed the Earth by just 480,000 miles - a near miss in astronomical terms. The asteroid, given the name 2000 YA, would have left a crater crater, circular, bowl-shaped depression on the earth's surface. (For a discussion of lunar craters, see moon.) Simple craters are bowl-shaped with a raised outer rim. Complex craters have a raised central peak surrounded by a trough and a fractured rim. about 20 times its size if it had struck. Robin Scagell, of the Society for Popular Astronomy The Society for Popular Astronomy is Britain's largest astronomical society for amateur astronomers with a membership exceeding 3,000 in 2005. It was founded in 1953 as the Junior Astronomical Society by experienced amateur astronomers including Patrick Moore, Ernest Noon , said: "If it had hit a built-up area built-up area n → bebautes Gebiet nt built-up area n → abitato there would have been devastation." Mr Scagell said that astronomers Famous astronomers and astrophysicists include: Directory: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A
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