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PHOTO CAPTION 

December 3, 1996 An Earth view from Asteroid Toutatis This computer-generated image shows a view of Earth as it would have appeared to someone standing on the surface of the asteroid Toutatis on Nov 29,1996. This simulation was created with a 2.5 degree field-of-view synthetic computer camera. Toutatis was visible on this date as a 12th magnitude object in the night time sky in the constellation of Virgo and could be viewed with a medium sized telescope. Toutatis currently approaches Earth once every four years. On November 29, it was 5.2 million kilometers away (approx. 3.3 million miles). In approximately eight years, on Sept. 29, 2004, Toutatis will be less than 1.6 million kilometers from Earth (under one million miles). This is only 4 times the distance to the moon, and is the closest approach predicted for any known asteroid or comet during the next 60 years.