EXCLUSIVE: NASA is closely monitoring the arrival of a previously unseen asteroid that is set to brush past Earth today at 21,362 miles per hour.
The space rock had been invisible to astronomers until Christmas Day when it was first identified.
Now called asteroid2017 YZ4, it will come past us between the Earth and the Moon at a distance of just 139,433 miles.
The Moon is 238,000 miles from Earth, and this pass is considered a cat’s whisker in astronomical terms.
NASA considers and monitors anything which comes within six million miles of our planet as a near earth asteroid.
Now called asteroid2017 YZ4, it will come past us between the Earth and the Moon at a distance of just 139,433 miles.
The Moon is 238,000 miles from Earth, and this pass is considered a cat’s whisker in astronomical terms.
NASA considers and monitors anything which comes within six million miles of our planet as a near earth asteroid.
This year, we discovered 1,985 new near Earth asteroids. There were 1888 such objects discovered in 2016 and 1,571 in 2015.
NASA spokesman
NASA spokesman
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