Close call: Asteroid buzzes, misses Earth -- unlike meteor
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Credit: AFP/Getty Images
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY Richard Ingham This handout picture from the European Space Agency (ESA) retrieved on September 3, 2008 shows an artist?s rendition of ESA's probe Rosetta?s closest approach to Earth during its second swing-by of our planet on 13 November 2007. A billion-euro (1.25-billion-dollar) European spacecraft will get up close and personal with an asteroid on July 10, 2010 as the probe blasts through the Solar System on its way to rendezvous with a comet. The flyby comes halfway in the extraordinary tale of the European Space Agency's Rosetta, launched in 2004 on a 12-year, 7.1-billion-kilometre (4.4-billion-mile) mission. AFP PHOTO/HO/ESA - RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images)
