An asteroid twice the size of the Empire State Building is flying close to Earth today, according to NASA, but it wouldn’t get close enough to cause any problems.
The space rock, called 418135 (2008 AG33), comes about two million miles from the planet, which is nearly eight times farther from Earth than the Moon. , or about 30 times the speed of sound.
According to Britain’s Daily Mail, while two million miles may seem like a huge distance, it is very close on cosmic scales, within Earth’s orbit.
For this reason, NASA considers any asteroid this close to be a potential hazard – a type of near-Earth object that could pose a threat to life on Earth.
NASA considers any object within 120 million miles of the planet as a near-Earth object (NEO), and any object within 4.65 million miles as “potentially hazardous”.
These rocks are closely monitored by astronomers and planetary defense specialists, as any small deviation in their orbit could put them on a collision course with Earth.