An asteroid just missed Earth this morning, but it’s fine

[Mike Wehner]

• An asteroid passed by Earth early this morning at such a short distance that it was closer to the surface than many satellites.
• The space rock passed our planet at a distance of 13,000 miles or so, which is a very near miss when it comes to space.
• Had the rock entered Earth's atmosphere, it would likely have been destroyed by our atmosphere before reaching the ground.

Congrats, everyone! We did it! Thanks to everyone's hard work and determination, we avoided an asteroid collision today. Just kidding, of course, the asteroid named 2020 SW wasn't going to hit us anyway, but it did pass by at a very close distance. The space rock, which NASA describes as being the size of a school bus, passed just 13,000 miles from Earth.

To put that in perspective, Earth's Moon is, on average, roughly 240,000 miles away. So, 13,000 miles is a near-miss by comparison, The good news is that even if the asteroid were to enter Earth's atmosphere, it would almost certainly be completely destroyed in the process. Put simply, we were really never in harm's way.

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An asteroid just missed Earth this morning, but it’s fine originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 24 Sep 2020 at 16:25:05 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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