An asteroid the size of a house whizzed past earth yesterday. It wasn't close enough to do any damage, and thankfully it is the closest space rock we'll see this year. The asteroid was only discovered last Tuesday by NASA's Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, just nine days before it flew by Earth.
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Named 2019 GC6, the space rock was flying past earth this morning at 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT). At its closest, it was about 136,000 miles (219,000 kilometers), or slightly more than half the average distance between Earth and the moon. The rock was traveling at a relative speed of 12,600 mph (20,300 km/h).
According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the rock's diameter is "within a factor of two" of 49 feet (15 meters), which means it may be up to 98 feet (30 meters) wide.
Any object that comes within 8 million kilometers of Earth's orbit and is big enough to cause significant damage is classified as a “potentially hazardous” near-Earth object (NEO).
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