Duck!

From Sky and Telescope:

Space Rock 2009 DD45 Buzzes Earth
Late word out of the IAU's Minor Planet Center: a small asteroid will pass close to Earth tomorrow (March 2nd) at 13:44 Universal Time. How close? The MPC's Timothy Spahr calculates that it'll be 0.00047 astronomical unit from Earth's center. That's only about 40,000 miles (63,500 km) up � well inside the Moon's orbit and roughly twice the altitude of most communications satellites!

This little cosmic surprise, designated 2009 DD45, turned up two days ago as a 19th-magnitude blip in images taken by Rob McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. It was already within 1� million miles of Earth and closing fast.

Thankfully, the news media have become less sensationalistic when it comes to these asteroidal close calls � especially since one actually struck our planet last October 7th, at night, and the impact went virtually unnoticed.

The asteroid that did hit Earth on October 7th, 2008 burned up in the atmosphere. More at the New Scientist.