The Google Asteroid Collision Logo You Never Saw

Google prepared — and briefly was showing — a special logo in honor of today’s near miss with Asteroid 2012 DA14. However, the company removed that out of respect, following the meteor explosion over Russia. Below, you can see the logo — or “doodle” as Google calls them — that was intended to run today […]

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Google prepared — and briefly was showing — a special logo in honor of today’s near miss with Asteroid 2012 DA14. However, the company removed that out of respect, following the meteor explosion over Russia.

Below, you can see the logo — or “doodle” as Google calls them — that was intended to run today on Google. It shows an asteroid plunging down toward the second G in Google, which dodges out of the way:

asteroid_2012_da14s_near_miss-1409005.2-hp

The logo above should show the animation, but if it doesn’t, here’s one part of it:

asteroid logo

Search Engine Land news editor Barry Schwartz was one of several who spotted it briefly. When it failed to appear broadly as we expected, we assumed Google might have pulled it because of yesterday’s news out of Russia.

That’s exactly the case. ABC News has a statement from Google saying:

“Out of respect for those injured in the extraordinary meteor shower in Russia earlier today, we have removed today’s doodle from the Google homepage,” a Google spokesperson told ABC News. “The doodle was created to mark Asteroid 2012 DA14 passing Earth.”

The logo does live on Google if you know exactly where to look, which would be here.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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