SUV-sized asteroid breaks record for closest Earth fly-by

NASA has announced that an SUV-sized asteroid just made the closest-known approach to Earth, but it didn't collide with the surface.

According to a NASA blog post found on its website, an SUV-sized asteroid just fly by Earth, and as NASA states, this fly-by has marked the closest Near-Earth Asteroid. The asteroid is named Asteroid 2020 QG, and measures in at roughly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) across, which is very small by asteroid standards.

Asteroid 2020 QG passed Earth at just 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers), and if it happened to be on the trajectory with Earth, it would have become a fireball and broken up in Earth's atmosphere. Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said, "It's really cool to see a small asteroid come by this close, because we can see the Earth's gravity dramatically bend its trajectory. Our calculations show that this asteroid got turned by 45 degrees or so as it swung by our planet."

If you didn't know, there are hundreds of millions of small asteroids the size of the asteroid that just passed Earth, but unfortunately, they are extremely hard to observe until they fly close to Earth. If you are interested in more information about this topic, check out this link here.