A Car-Sized Asteroid Flew Past Earth This Week And No One Had A Clue

This week, a car-sized asteroid flew close to Earth and NASA has admitted that it has no idea that it was coming. Named 2020 OG, the asteroid flew within about 2,950 km of Earth on Sunday which is extremely close.

According to asteroid trackers and a catalogue complied by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy, 2020 OG is the closest asteroid recorded.

It was detected by the Palomar Observatory in California about six hours after it flew past Earth.

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Minor Planet Center/International Astronomical Union

Paul Chodas, the director of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider: "The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun. We didn't see it coming."

He also confirmed that the asteroid flew so close to Earth that it broke records. He said, "Yesterday's close approach is closest on record, if you discount a few known asteroids that have actually impacted our planet."

Based on telescopic observations, the sizeable space rock is between six feet and 18 feet wide, which places it in between a small car and an extended-cab pickup truck.

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Darrel Robertson/NASA Ames

Even though the vehicle-sized asteroid flew near our planet, NASA has confirmed that it did not pose any harm and even if it had actually hit Earth, there would have nothing to worry about.

According to the Impact Earth simulator from Purdue University and Imperial College London, even if it had been a larger asteroid and made of dense iron, only small pieces may have reached the ground.

This happens because when such a sizeable asteroid explodes in the atmosphere, it creates a huge fireball with an airburst equivalent to a couple of dozen kilotons of TNT and this would have taken place two or three miles above ground and it wouldn't have sounded any different than heavy traffic, reported Lad Bible.

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SpacePlus (Representational Image)

According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology, NASA detects a car-sized asteroid at least once a year. The report further added that a meteoroid capable of causing significant damage to Earth hits every couple of thousand years.

The website says: 'About once a year, an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball, and burns up before reaching the surface. Every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage to the area. Finally, only once every few million years, an object large enough to threaten Earth's civilization comes along. Impact craters on Earth, the moon and other planetary bodies are evidence of these occurrences.'