On Sunday , an asteroid as wide-eyed as a football game field fly past Earth , at a good distance between Earth and the Moon . But we did n’t recognize it until the sidereal day before , which is exciting .

call 2018 GE3 , the asteroid is thought to measure about 47 to 100 meters ( 154 to 328 foot ) across according toNASA . It flew past at a distance of 192,200 klick ( 120,000 miles ) , which is precisely midway between Earth and the Moon , and elbow room too distant to cause us any concern .

That it was only spotted 21 hour before on April 14 , however , by the Catalina Sky Survey is a bit perturbing . Had it hit Earth , “ it would have caused regional , not global , damage , and might have disintegrated in the atmospheric state before reaching the ground , ” notedspaceweather.com .

“ Nevertheless , it is a significant asteroid , illustrating how even large space rocks can still take us by surprise . 2018 GE3 was establish less than a day before its closest approach . ”

The asteroid is on an ovoid orbit of our Sun , involve 2.5 years to make its agency around the Solar System and crossing the reach of all four rocky planets in the process . This is the closest coming to Earth it will make the foreseeable future tense , with only one further qualifying ( at a greater length ) scheduled up to 2152 , beyond which there is no orbital information .

Its size , though , has draw comparing to the surmise comet that exploded over Tunguska , Siberia in 1908 . Known as theTunguska event , this explosion is think to have level about 2,000 square km ( 770 square miles ) of Siberian timber .

This year we ’ve already seen anumber of asteroidsmake airless pass to Earth , most of which we ’ve track long in advance . We ’re getting dear at descry asteroids , but we ’re still not perfect . It ’s estimated more than a quarter of near - Earth asteroid remain undetected .

There are no asteroid on a know hit course with Earth . But one mean solar day we may well be faced withsuch a outlook , so we ’ll need to be both quick to track the asteroid and also ready to amuse it . Fortunately , there are avariety of proposalsfor how to do that . rent ’s just ensure our optic are exposed , eh ?

( H / T : Space.com )