Description

The Star Twinkles almanac, formerly published in Port Adelaide, was once regarded as a navigational bible by local seafarers. But there’s at least one heavenly body it never accounted for. On this day 82 years ago, our pale blue dot had a close call, at least on a planetary scale. “On 30 October 1937, [asteroid] Hermes glided past Earth only twice as far away as the Moon, racing across the sky at a rate of 5 degrees per hour. Nowadays only meteors and Earth-orbiting satellites move faster” (https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/31oct_hermes). Hermes visits our neighbourhood twice every 777 days, but seldom that close.

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