Nasa astronomers spotted a double-decker bus-sized asteroid just in time to see it speed past Earth, passing closer than the moon.
Over the weekend, the seven-metre wide HL129 asteroid came within 186,000 miles of Earth, 50,000 miles closer than the moon’s orbit.
The asteroid was first discovered on Wednesday by scientists from Nasa’s Asteroid Watch project in California, and is the most recent asteroid seen coming within a close proximity to Earth after DX110 in March.
A video of the asteroid’s orbit has been produced by Space.com:
