Large asteroid to brush by Earth this fall

[United Press International]

PASADENA, Calif., May 3 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers said an
asteroid the size of a small city will pass near the Earth on Sept.
29, in the closest approach of a large space rock this century.
The asteroid, called Toutatis, follows a four-year orbit
around the sun that takes it near Earth periodically, SPACE.com
reported Monday. The Web site said an Internet rumor has arisen that
the asteroid will strike Earth this fall -- a prospect that
astronomers say is untrue.
Toutatis is a dumbbell-shaped asteroid nearly 3 miles long
and about 1.5 miles wide. This fall, it will pass within about 1
million miles of Earth -- about four times the distance to the moon.
Astronomers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the
orbit of Toutatis is known with better precision than any other
large asteroid known to cross Earth's orbit. Toutatis has not been
so near since the year 1353 and will not approach this closely again
until 2562, NASA's astronomers have calculated.
No other asteroid so large is known to have come so close in
the past, though accurate tracking of space rocks is a fairly
recent, high-tech skill that still leaves wide margins of error for
many objects, they said.