WHOOPSIE-DAISY: An asteroid barely missed Earth and NASA didn’t see it coming

NASA reported the asteroid as the closest flyby on record.

The asteroid was roughly 3 to 6 metres across (10-20 feet) about the size of an SUV or a large car. It was moving faster than a bullet at around 12.3 kilometres per second, though that is still fairly slow for an asteroid.

According to NASA, the asteroid was not big enough to bring about any major damage. The agency added that it came within approximately 2,950 kilometres of Earth—closer than the distance between Toronto and Vancouver.

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

The rock, called asteroid 2020 GQ flew over the Indian Ocean late Sunday or early Saturday. It wasn’t spotted until it had already passed by the Earth.

“It’s really cool to see a small asteroid come by this close, because we can see the Earth’s gravity dramatically bend its trajectory,” noted Chodas in a news release for NASA. “Our calculations show that this asteroid got turned by 45 degrees or so as it swung by our planet.”

Last year, a large asteroid flew by the Earth within 73,000 kilometres going about twice as fast and was described as a potential “city-killer.” The asteroid was about 100 metres wide.

NASA has identified an asteroid that could possibly cause world-changing damage called 1950 DA. The asteroid is 1.3 kilometres wide and could hit the planet in 2880.

The agency isn’t expecting any large asteroids to hit the Earth in the next century.