Nation IN BRIEF : ARIZONA : Small Space Object Called an Asteroid

A small object discovered last month hurtling through space turned out to be a tiny asteroid, astronomers at the University of Arizona at Tucson said. The rock--30-feet in diameter--is one of the smallest asteroids ever detected, planetary scientist Tom Gehrels said. The object was discovered Nov. 6 with the university’s 36-inch Spacewatch Telescope. Because the asteroid maintained a circular orbit, astronomers thought it might be a man-made object, perhaps one of the rockets that sent manned Apollo spacecraft to the moon. The object will pass within 300,000 miles of Earth on Thursday.