Asteroid 2012 DA14 brushes by Earth: live 18.31 Along with the astonishing video footage from Russia earlier, we have some more amazing still images of the damage caused by this morning's meteoroite. Here's the hole melted into the ice that one fragment created: 18.25 Set your clocks: DA14 is due to whizz past us in exactly one hour. 18.08 Hey! I don't know if you've all heard, but that meteorite this morning and tonight's asteroid are NOT the same thing. Here, the Telegraph's own Tom Chivers explains - using some very elaborate and expensive-looking props that we did not just find lying around the office. Tom's getting some good feedback on his video debut: 17.59 It appears DA14 has the power to both destroy AND create. Its impending approach has spawned a new Twitter hashtag: #asteroidconfessions. Here's mine: We've all done it. 17.48 Google has taken down the Doodle celebrating the approach of the asteroid in the wake of this morning's events in Russia. 17.24 Nasa is trying once again to keep everyone calm, insisting that there is no correlation between this morning's meteorite and this evening's asteroid: Oh Nasa, the hubris of taking on Twitter in such a reasonable, informed fashion. The top three replies to that tweet: And an apparently sincere: It IS valuable information, Daniela, it is. 17.09 Gizmodo has joined in the fun by producing a "What if the asteroid actually hit us?" article. It's partially illustrated with video footage of a Chinese 3.3-Megaton atomic bomb test. Feel better, everyone? 16.30 Nasa will be streaming the asteroid's fly-by live here. Bruce Willis stars, though in my own humble opinion Steve Buscemi steals the show. Believe me, with an event like this, you won't want to miss a thing either. 16.23 An amateur photographer in Australia has managed to get a picture of the asteroid as it hurtles towards us. Dave Herald, of Murrumbateman, Australia took the image about seven hours before DA14's closest approach. 15.59 The Telegraph's graphics team have done a graphic detailing the meteorite strike this morning that also shows how it and the asteroid due to pass by this evening are unrelated, the main explanation being that they are coming from entirely different directions. Hence our friend Rusty's earlier observation about the shooting gallery. We also have an explanation on the difference between meteorites and asteroids: An asteroid is a small, rocky body which orbits the Sun, and roughly once a year one the size of a car will hit the Earth's atmosphere, creating an impressive fireball but burning up before it hits the ground. A meteorite is a particle from an asteroid, or a comet, which survives its passage into our atmosphere and comes crashing to the surface, as happened in central Russia this morning. Before the meteorite makes contact with the ground it is known as a meteoroid A meteor, on the other hand, is a form of shooting star - the light phenomenon which occurs when a meteoroid enters the earth's atmosphere and vaporises. 15.30 Perhaps NOW Barack Obama will take a proper look at that White House petition: 15.09 Tom Parfitt, the Telegraph correspondent in Moscow, has reported on the meteorite which exploded in the sky over the city of Chelyabinsk this morning. The video footage is truly amazing: 15.06 Asteroid 2012 DA14 is set to make its closest point of approach around 1925 GMT, over the Indian Ocean near Sumatra. The best viewing locations, with binoculars and telescopes, are in Asia, Australia and eastern Europe. Even there, all anyone can see is a pinpoint of light as the asteroid zooms by at 17,400 mph (28,000 kph). According to AP, Nasa claims that an object of this size makes a close approach like this every 40 years - and that the likelihood of a strike is every 1,200 years. Conveniently, the AP story does not mention how long ago the last such strike occurred. They do have some helpful quotes, however: "We are in a shooting gallery, and this is graphic evidence of it," said former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, chairman emeritus of the B612 Foundation, committed to protecting Earth from dangerous asteroids. DA14 - discovered by Spanish astronomers last February - is "such a close call" that it is a "celestial torpedo across the bow of spaceship Earth," Schweickart said in a phone interview Thursday. Thanks, Rusty. And then there's this: if the asteroid DOES hit (which it won't, it won't!) it will release the energy equivalent of 2.4 million tons of TNT and wipe out 750 square miles (1,950 square kms), AP reports. 15.00 GMT Good afternoon and welcome to our live coverage of what scientists tell us is purely a cosmic coincidence, and definitely not a sign of the end of the world. A 45metre asteroid is currently plunging towards Earth, with Nasa claiming it will make the closest fly-by ever for a rock of its size - but they swear it will miss us by 17,151 miles, avoiding catastrophe. Meanwhile, just hours ago, a plunging meteorite exploded with a blinding flash above central Russia, setting off a shockwave that shattered windows and injured almost 1,000 people in an event unprecedented in modern times. Robert Massey, deputy executive secretary of Britain's Royal Astronomical Society, says there is "absolutely no connection" between the two events. The internet, meanwhile, has imploded. So sit back, get comfortable, and stay with us as we live blog the cosmic chaos.