Asteroid nearly hit Earth Monday night

Did you know that while you were sleeping, an asteroid almost hit Earth? HLN has all the details:

'2 million miles away, astronomers do consider that a close call. Great. They say that it was the size of three football fields and traveling at about 27,000 miles per hour.'

It doesn't sound like we were in TOO much danger. Even so, "CBS This Morning" says the asteroid was given a name: 2000 EM26.

'Hundreds of thousands of people logged onto a special website to watch it go by.'

Asteroids are actually small planets made mostly of rock that continuously revolve around the sun.

USA Today says 2000 EM26 was actually first discovered in March of 2000 and Monday evening was the first time it's been observed since.

This asteroid-sighting comes just about a year after an asteroid blew up over Russia, leaving more than 1,500 injured.

CNN spoke with astronomer Bob Berman who said a previously undiscovered asteroid hits Earth about once a century, like it did in February 2013 in Russia. He went on to say:

' ... discovering and tracking all NEOs (near-Earth objects), as well as setting up contingency plans for deflecting them on short notice should the need arise, would be a wise use of resources.'


We have to say we agree with Berman. Getting hit by an asteroid doesn't sound like a fun thing.