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A huge asteroid zoomed past Earth in terrifying near miss during the early hours of Sunday, just hours after it first spotted by astronemers.

The 110m-long asteroid flew by 192,500km away - half the distance the Moon is away from us.

According to NASA the encounter with the asteroid, labelled 2018 GE3, went by without a hitch.

Asteroid 2018 GE3 was first observed at Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.

It was recorded as the closest ever near miss, since records began.

(Image: Stocktrek Images)

Earthsky.org reported: "An Apollo type earth-crossing asteroid, was flying through space at 66,174 miles per hour.

"If the asteroid had entered our atmosphere, a great portion of the space rock would have disintegrated due to friction with the air.

"However, some of an asteroid this size might have gotten through to Earth’s surface, and an asteroid this big is capable of causing some regional damage, depending on various factors such as composition, speed, entry angle, and location of impact."

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The 2018 GE3 had about three to six times the diameter of the space rock that penetrated the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February 2013.

That asteroid landed and caused more than 1,500 people to seek treatment for injuries, mostly from flying glass.