An asteroid that had the potential to wreak havoc on Earth recently whizzed passed us and space boffins had no idea it was coming. The asteroid, known as 2017 VL2, shot by Earth on November 9 and experts did not find out about it until a day later. The space rock flew by just 73,000 miles from our planet – which is a third of the distance between Earth and the moon. Experts believe the asteroid is between 16 and 32 meters long, and if it hit Earth, it would have had the potential to flatten a city such as New York.
A recent investigation from Science Alert found that if a 12-meter asteroid were to hit New York it could destroy buildings within six kilometers of the impact. As the 2017 VL2 asteroid is almost three times the size of Science Alert’s hypothetical rock, it could cause three times the damage. Asteroid 2017 VL2 was observed at ATLAS-MLO, Mauna Loa, Hawaii and is only the 48th known asteroid to have flown within one lunar distance – READ MORE
