NASA asteroid tracker: A giant space rock few past Earth closer than the Moon

The asteroid, dubbed by NASA Asteroid 2019 KT, zipped by in the wee morning hours of May 28 around 4.48am BST (3.48am UTC). NASA’s asteroid trackers at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have kept a watchful eye on the space rock for the two days leading to the flyby. The asteroid was first observed barrelling towards the Earth on Sunday, May 26. And when the asteroid finally approached our planet today, it scraped by much closer than the Moon.


Asteroid KT is an Apollo-type space rock on an orbital trajectory similar to that of Asteroid 1862 Apollo. The space rock skimmed the Earth on Tuesday on a so-called “Earth Close Approach” but thankfully did not strike. NASA explained: “You may have heard about an asteroid or comet making a ‘close approach’ to Earth. “That happens when the object in its natural orbit about the Sun passes particularly close to Earth. READ MORE: Watch a major asteroid DESTROY Earth in fiery crash simulation

“There’s no firm rule on what counts as ‘close’ but it’s not at all uncommon for small asteroids to pass closer to Earth than our own Moon. “That might seem too close for comfort but remember that the Moon orbits Earth about 239,000 miles (385,000km) away.” So, just how close did Asteroid KT come to Earth yesterday? At its closest, NASA estimates the space rock approached us from a distance of about 0.00217 astronomical units (au). READ MORE: How often do asteroids hit Earth?


One astronomical unit describes the distance from the Earth to the Sun or about 93 million miles (149.6 million km).

Asteroid KT trimmed this distance down to a “nominal distance” of just 201,714 miles (324,627km). According to NASA, this is the equivalent of 0.85 Lunar Distances (LD) or 85 percent of the distance to the Moon. NASA said: “If you represented Earth by a basketball in a scale model, the Moon would be the size of a tennis ball and about 21ft (seven metres) away – the distance between the two posts of a professional soccer goal. READ MORE: NASA sheds light on a daring asteroid defence plan

“At this scale, a 100m-wide (328ft-wide) asteroid would be much smaller than a grain of sand, even smaller than a speck of dust.” NASA’s JPL estimates Asteroid KT measures somewhere in the range of 42.6ft to 95.1ft (13m to 29m) in diameter. At the upper end of NASA’s size estimate, the asteroid is comparable in size to about 14 Queen Size beds. After the flyby, the asteroid is not expected to approach the Earth again but will instead fly close to the Gas Giant Jupiter on April 13, 2025.

NASA asteroid tracker: The speedy asteroid shot by in the wee morning hours of May 28

NASA asteroid tracker: The giant space rock safely few by without hitting Earth