William sent in this link at https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/skyscraper-size-asteroid-flew-closer-212209206.html … an asteroid the size of a 20 storey skyscraper flew close to the earth – at a point nearer the earth than the moon is to the earth. It was a near miss you might say – and if it had hit the moon it could have been catastrophic. If it had been a bullseye and hit the earth at the location of a city or well populated region, that too could have been catastrophic. It was, and still is, nowhere near the size of the dinosaur killing asteroid and even if it had exploded in the atmosphere it could have been disastrous. Was it as big as the space rock that exploded over Tall el-Hammam in the Jordan valley, one may wonder. This is thought to have given rise to the Biblical tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It occurred in the early part of July, 2023, and NASA said it was travelling at 53,000 mph. An array of telescopes in South Africa picked it up – 2 days after it had passed by, travelling away from the earth. The Sun caused a blind spot it would seem – and not for the first time.
Staying on the subject of space rocks, at https://phys.org/news/2023-07-asteroid-ryugu-anhydrous-ingredients-afar.html … which is the continuing use of dust samples brought back to earth by the Japanese Hyabasa mission to Ryugu, and the discovery of anhydrous ingredients. This indicates a connection between Ryugu and a reservoir that formed comets and asteroids in the outer protoplanetary disk. Ryugu is a second generation carbonaceous asteroid formed by the reassembly of fragments from a much larger cosmic body that presumably may have orbited in the asteroid belt where Ryugu is located.