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Richard A. Lovett for National Geographic News

Published May 17, 2012

A newly discovered asteroid called 2012 DA14 will pass so close to Earth in February that it might hit a communications satellite, scientists say.

"That's very unlikely, but we can't rule it out," said Paul Chodas, a planetary astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

[link to news.nationalgeographic.com]

They have known about DA14 for quite some time.