(ETH) – Earth was just skimmed by the closest asteroid to ever pass by earth according to a new report. The asteroid which was reportedly the size of an SUV passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above Earth according to NASA.
The report stated that if it had been on a collision course with Earth, the asteroid — named 2020 QG — would likely not have caused any damage, but would have instead disintegrated into the atmosphere, which would have created a fireball in the sky, or a meteor, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said in a statement.
The asteroid, which measured roughly 10 to 20 feet (three to six meters) long, passed above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday and was moving at nearly eight miles per second. “It’s really cool to see a small asteroid come by this close because we can see the Earth’s gravity dramatically bends its trajectory,” said Paul Chodas, the director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA.
