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| This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 taken on November 7 shows the space rock 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometers, from Earth. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) |
By Linda Felaco
Did you feel it? At 6:28 p.m. EST, a 1300-foot-wide hunk of space rock—about the size of an aircraft carrier—whizzed past us in the closest encounter between Earth and an asteroid in 30 years. Tonight, asteroid 2005 YU55 was a mere 201,700 miles away from us—closer than the moon at one point. At the time it breezed past us, the craggy chunk of rock was traveling at about 29,000 mph, or a blistering 8 miles per second. Just think how much wind energy it could have generated if it'd swung by a little closer and you had a turbine in your back yard.
Texas actually declines to execute someone—for now. Yesterday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Hank Skinner a stay of execution so it could decide whether a new state DNA law applies to his case—or if he should be executed without the tests being performed. Skinner was scheduled to be executed tomorrow for the 1993 murders of his girlfriend Twila Busby and her two adult sons despite the fact that during the trial and in all the years he has spent on Texas's death row, crucial DNA tests have never been performed on much of the crime-scene evidence. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has declined to express an opinion about the case, saying only that it's a matter for the courts.
Mississippi voters decline to redefine personhood. Contrary to predictions, voters in Mississippi have voted against the state's controversial Personhood Amendment, which would have granted full constitutional rights to a fertilized egg—and by a comfortable margin. As of 11:00 p.m., the voting was 42% yes, 58% no, with 69% of precincts reporting. Unfortunately, Mississippians also voted in roughly the same numbers in reverse in favor of voter ID. Check back tomorrow for more election coverage from around the country.