EARTH DODGES THE ROCK

Giant asteroid’s near miss with planet Earth

AN ASTEROID big enough to devastate much of the UK missed Earth yesterday.

“The Rock” – estimated to be nearly a mile long – whizzed by at 33 metres per second.

It was due to pass one million miles away, which is close in astronomical terms.

Telescope service Slooh said: “Even a 30 metre-sized asteroid can cause significant damage to a major city. While not causing an extinction-level event, an impact from an asteroid the size of The Rock would have a calamitous effect at local and even regional level.”

Officially known as asteroid 2014 JO25, The Rock is nicknamed after wrestler Dwayne Johnson. Astronomers monitored the asteroid as it passed at 1.24pm.

Experts estimate it is between 650m and 1.4km long.

An asteroid a mile wide hitting the Earth would unleash as much energy as 1000 atom bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

It would destroy a city the size of London and cause damage hundreds of miles around.

No asteroid of comparable size has come this close to the Earth in the last 13 years.

Bus gorge horror

At least 44 people died after a bus swerved off a road into a deep gorge in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. Officials said two people survived Wednesday’s crash.