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E-mail Xinhua, December 5, 2024
A stadium-size asteroid made its closest approach to Earth Wednesday, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
It was the first of two asteroid fly-bys this week.
The asteroid, known as 2020 XR, made its closest approach to Earth at a distance of about 2.2 million kilometers at 12:26 a.m. Eastern Time Wednesday, according to JPL.
Asteroid 2020 XR is between 300 and 700 meters wide, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). It passed Earth just under six times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
2020 XR was discovered by astronomers four years ago. Astronomers briefly thought it had a small chance of colliding with Earth in 2028. But by looking back at older observations of the sky, they spotted the asteroid in existing data and used this additional information to more accurately calculate its orbit around the Sun and rule out any chance of Earth impact for at least the next 100 years, according to ESA.
Another small asteroid careened toward Earth before burning up Tuesday night above northern Siberia in Russia.
