[Dante Lauretta] There's a very exciting event coming up today 2012 da14 is going to do a close
flyby to the earth at a distance of about 17,000 miles. The good news is that
the earth is safe, the International Space Station is safe, and all of our
satellite assets are safe.
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NASA has an extensive near-earth observation program that's been scanning
the skies for well over a decade to catalogue the most potentially hazardous
asteroids and to assess their impact threat. This has been a phenomenally
successful program and we've retired the majority of risk associated with an
asteroid impact in the near future.
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The flyby of asteroid 2012 da14 is a historic event. Never before in human
history have we been able to see an object come this close of this size. This
is an attribute to our the phenomenal success of our asteroid observation
programs. We've been scanning the skies for well over a decade to catalog these
objects. We're able to predict their orbits well into the future and get
ready for this phenomenal scientific event.