A car-sized asteroid flew within 1,830 miles of Earth over the weekend — the closest pass ever — and we didn't see it coming

Minor Planet Center/International Astronomical Union

• An asteroid the size of a car flew within about 1,830 miles of Earth this weekend — closer than any known space rock has ever come without crashing into the planet.
• A NASA-funded program detected the asteroid, called 2020 QG, six hours after its close approach.
• If the asteroid had hit Earth, it probably would have exploded in the atmosphere in an airburst too high up to do any damage on the ground.
• But the near miss highlights a major blind spot in Earth's programs to search for dangerous asteroids.
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A car-sized asteroid flew within about 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) of Earth on Sunday.

That's a remarkably close shave — the closest ever recorded, in fact, according to asteroid trackers and a catalog compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy. 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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