INTERVIEW: NASA Planetary Sciences Director Jim Green on Russian meteor and DA-14 asteroid

DETROIT (WXYZ) - This morning we caught up with Jim Green, Director of NASA's Planetary Sciences Division. He says while it is a big day for space scientists, the two headline grabbing events are unrelated.

NASA has examined the trajectory of the meteor that struck the Ural region in Russia and it does not match up to the known trajectory of the large asteroid, DA-14 .

We also talked about how close the asteroid - half of the size of a football field - will come to Earth. And the answer is very close - passing between the Earth and weather & cell phone satellites.

While this will be a close miss, Green says there are other potentially hazardous asteroids that NASA is watching. But they won't pose a threat to Earth for hundreds of years, a blink of the eye compared to the age of the universe.