Moon, Asteroid | featured news

NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top senator revealed Friday.

A small asteroid zipped by Earth well inside the orbit of the moon on Friday, marking the second known space-rock encounter for our planet over the past week, NASA said.

A small asteroid passed within the moon's distance from the Earth on Wednesday morning, and another will do likewise later in the day, space watchers say.

If the human species should be destroyed on Earth, our future may reside on the Moon if plans being drawn up for a “Doomsday ark” on the moon by the European Space Agency are carried through. The Ark will contain the essentials of life and human civilization, to be activated in the event of earth being devastated by a giant asteroid or nuclear war.

A small asteroid will buzz the Earth late Friday night, flying just inside the orbit of the moon. It should fly safely by our home planet, according to a crack team of NASA space rock trackers.