Residents of Chelyabinsk may understandably be just a bit jittery, but the rest of us can breathe easy - or at least continue to rely on satnav. Asteroid DA14 may be a 45m chunk of rock set to pass Earth within the orbit of our geosynchronous satellites, but it won't come closer than 1,000km to any of them, and will be more than 5,000km from any of the GPS or Glonass navigation satellites.

So says the Isle of Man-based Space Data Association, a non-profit group of satellite operators which tracks such things. Says the SDA's operations manager Dr TS Kelso: "There is no reason to believe that this asteroid poses a threat to any satellites in Earth orbit." And,  he adds: "For reference, satellite operators are normally concerned with uncoordinated flybys of less than 10 km."