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Car-sized asteroid comes extremely close to Earth today

Astronomers have calculated that the space rock will graze by Earth at just three percent the distance between the Earth and the moon

Published: Fri 12 Apr 2024, 3:49 PM

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Photo: NASA Orbit Viewer

Photo: NASA Orbit Viewer

An asteroid the size of a car recently made a close pass by Earth. The space rock, called Asteroid 2024 GJ2, was only discovered on April 9, few days before its near-Earth encounter on April 12.

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According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the asteroid is around 3 metres in size and was discovered on Tuesday by the Pan-STARRS 2 telescope in Hawaii, USA.

Astronomers have calculated that the space rock will graze by Earth at a 19.3-thousand-km distance — that's just three percent the distance between the Earth and the moon.

According to the ESA, the asteroid measures between 2.5m and 5m.



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