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A low-flying asteroid only missed Earth by a few hundred kilometers on Friday the 13th – and wasn’t noticed until the next day.
The asteroid, called 2020 VT4, was spotted 15 hours later by the investigation of the last asteroid Earth impact warning system at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
It passed our planet less than 400 kilometers (240 miles) away, roughly the same distance as the International Space Station orbiting Earth.
As such, asteroid 2020 VT4 sets the record for the closest recorded non-metric asteroid pass to Earth.
It was about six meters in diameter and flew over the South Pacific Ocean. Its encounter with Earth “shortened its orbit, ensuring that this land cruiser will make more frequent close approaches,” Tony Dunn, who runs the Orbit Simulator site, tweeted.
If the asteroid had stuck to Earth, it would have burned in its atmosphere, leaving a meteoric trail behind. NASA says it would take an asteroid over 25 meters but less than a kilometer to cause local damage to Earth.
However, an adulteroid longer than one to two kilometers could have effects worldwide.
The record for an asteroid passing closest to Earth has already been broken once this year.
Asteroid 2020 HQ traveled just 1,830 miles south of the Indian Ocean on Sunday, according to Zwicky Transient Facility, a robotic camera that scans the sky for space phenomena.
This asteroid was also particularly small – around three to six meters in diameter, which is roughly the size of a large car.
An object of this size passes close to Earth about every year, but spotting them is a challenge. Space agencies like NASA need to track these objects in case they get close enough to endanger Earth.
Asteroid – 2020 VT4 isn’t the only space debris to pass through Earth on a particularly unlucky day, either.
An asteroid, called Apophis, measures around 300 meters, which makes it comparable to the Eiffel Tower.
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