Another Holiday Asteroid Will Wiz by Earth Next Week

'Spooky' buzzed by Earth on Halloween. Now asteroid 2003 SD220 will zoom by on Christmas Eve. And guess what it's made of?

The Answer: COAL! Well space coal. More exact, carbonaceous chondrites. Appropriate, given what bad dude and dudette's receive in their stockings.

It's estimated to be a half-mile to a mile-and-a-half wide. It will zoom by earth at five miles-per-second. No need to head for the bunker. It will miss us by a cool 6.7 million miles.

You can see it with a telescope, and a little astronomy experience to find it.

The asteroid will make five fly-by's of earth in the next 12 years. The next go around will be in 2018.