The asteroid has a moon

While the panic ensued and bread and milk vanished from store shelves about the blizzard that turned into the fizzard, there was something mightily amazing happening well above our heads in outer space..

There was a frighteningly close  shave experienced by the planet Earth.

On Monday, asteroid 2004 BL86 was traveling at 35,000 miles .. it passed around 3.1 times the distance of the Earth to the moon. And when it did, there was quite an amazing sight: The asteroid HAS ITS OWN MOON!
This asteroid was discovered in 2004.. the passby it had yesterday was the closest it will be until 2027..This asteroid was so big, obviously, that a moon was gravitated in for the wild ride..

The other obvious aspect of this story: This was exceptionally close.. at least we knew about it since 2004.. If it would have now–or does in 2027–it would be equal to several Hiroshima bombs.. It would be a mass extinction event.. But last night we were safe. Instead we panicked in big cities and bought every crumb of bread and ounce of milk that stores had..

At some point we need to realize that the real threat–and yet ironically the place we should be trying to reach–is space. This one let us live. But it’s the other asteroids floating and whirling in space that we don’t know about which keeps people awake at night..