2012: A Too-close Encounter with Eros?

 Yesterday, I quoted an excerpt from a blog that said that 433 Eros, a Near Earth Asteroid, would pass close to earth on January 31, 2012. The blog writer wondered if this close encounter might lead to a collision and be the cause of the end of the world 2012 predictions.

Here’s an excerpt from an official NASA site that says that, not only has Eros already passed close to the earth many times, but it will NOT collide with the Earth in 2012 or any other time.  

The closest approach of Eros to Earth in the 20th century was on January 23, 1975, at approximately 0.15 AU (14 million miles/22 million kilometers). Previous close approaches occurred in 1901 at 0.32 AU (30 million miles/48 million kilometers) and in 1931 at 0.17 AU (16 million miles/26 million kilometers). Because of its repeated close encounters with Earth, Eros has been an important object historically for refining the mass of the Earth-moon system and the value of the astronomical unit. Eros is no threat to actually hit the Earth, however.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/eros.txt