Two Asteroids to Pass Nearer to Earth Than the Moon on Wednesday

(Sept. 7) -- They're coming our way ... both of them! Two asteroids will narrowly miss colliding with Earth on Wednesday, according to NASA. Fortunately, neither is very big, nor are they expected to do much more than provide skywatchers with a brief, breathtaking sight before they continue their voyage into the oblivion. Unlike, say, the two giant asteroid strikes that actually hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Here's the Surge Desk rundown of when to look, where to look from and what to look for:

ASTEROID 1: 2010 RX30
Size: Between 32 and 65 feet
When to look: 5:51 a.m. EDT
Best vantage point: North Pacific, south of Japan
Distance from the Earth at closest approach: Just 154,100 miles away from the Earth (the moon, by contrast, is approximately 225,622 miles away at its closest point of orbit).

ASTEROID 2: 2010 RX12
Size: Between 19 and 45 feet
When to look: 5:12 p.m. EDT
Best vantage point: Antarctica
Distance from the Earth at closest approach: An even-closer shave, at 49,088 miles.

Now, obviously most viewers aren't going to be making the trek out to Antarctica or the North Pacific, but NASA assures that "both objects should be observable near closest approach with moderate-sized amateur telescopes."

An interesting and potentially worrisome bit of background on why this near-Earth asteroid situation hasn't gotten more play in the press before now. As NASA explains:

    The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson Arizona discovered both objects on the morning of September 5 during their routine monitoring of the skies. The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge Massachusetts first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded that both objects would pass within the distance of the Moon about three days after their discovery.

Also curiously, NASA was unable (or unwilling) to tell Surge Desk just where in the sky prospective viewers should look. Hopefully, as the time draws closer, the agency will get more specific through either its Asteroid Watch website or its Twitter account. But no matter what, as Space.com points out, "Because of the asteroids' movement, finding and tracking them across the sky will be a challenge for seasoned skywatchers." So, happy hunting!

Truthfully, the seemingly glaring lack of asteroid awareness comes at an opportune time, underscoring a recent warning from American and Canadian astronauts that Earth needs to be more vigilant in its asteroid-monitoring endeavors.

One proposal that seems to be gaining ground within the scientific community: the ATLAS initiative, or the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, which would rely on a combination of large, high-quality digital cameras, small telescopes and high-speed computers, all installed at small research universities around the world. The cost of launching the program, which would require at least two sites to start, is estimated to be $2 million, relatively cheap as far as space-oriented technologies go. And far cheaper than the alternative, as the following video demonstration might suggest: