The 42ft space object descended on a collision course with Earth just three days ago on November 2. NASA keeps a database record of almost 20,000 near-Earth asteroids, however this rock remained undetected until just a day before it passed Earth, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The space rock was recorded travelling at speeds in excess of 19,000 mph.
The object known as 2019 VA, came within 65,100 miles of colliding with Earth.
Although that distance may appear very far away, the asteroid came within a quarter of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The Moon is located around 240,000 miles from Earth and takes round 29 days to orbit.
NASA considers any object which travels within 120 million miles of Earth as a “Near-Earth object”.
Near-Earth asteroids can reach up to 3,200 metres wide and can stay in orbit for between 10 million and 100 million years.
The asteroids are composed of mostly water and dust particles before becoming frozen solid when orbiting cold planets such as Uranus
The deadly asteroids can travel at speeds in excess of 45,000mph.
When travelling in the solar system, asteroids often form into a solid rock like structure whilst passing through the warmer inner solar system planets such as Mars and Jupiter.
The discovery comes following another near miss, when an asteroid came within just 4,000 miles of colliding with Earth on Thursday.
The C0PPEV1 – since renamed 2019 UN 13 – travelled 3,852 miles (6,200km) above the Earth, which makes it one of the closest near-misses in recorded history.
The object spotted flying by the Earth by the Catalina Sky Survey, based in Arizona.
The asteroid was first picked up by an amateur astronomer Tony Dunn, who wrote on Twiter : “In about 45 minutes from now, newly-discovered asteroid C0PPEV1 will pass only 6200 km above Earth’s surface.
“45 minutes ago it was passing through Earth’s shadow.
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The Space Agency said: “NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small.
“In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years.”
