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A 1300 feet (400 meters) wide asteroid came within 202,000 miles (325,000 km) of Earth, which is closer than the orbit of the Moon. According to NASA it’s the closest this particular asteroid has come to Earth for 200 years.

The space rock which is named Asteroid 2005 YU55 is in an orbit which regularly brings it close to Earth, its next approach will be in 2028. This particular pass is the closest any asteroid has come to Earth since 1976.

Near Earth Objects or NEO’s are tracked by NASA’s Spaceguard program which discovers and tracks any asteroids or other objects which could possibly pose a threat to Earth.

Asteroid 2005 YU55 is around the size of an aircraft carrier and could have caused enormous damage if it had struck Earth. In 1908 an asteroid with a width of 50 meters (150 feet) struck over the Siberian region of Russian, the explosion created was 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb which landed in Hiroshima Japan and layed waste to an area of around 2,000 square kilometers. Asteroid 2005 YU55 is 8 times larger than that particular object.

The next near miss could be in 2029 when the asteroid Apophis will pass Earth at a distance of only 18,300 miles (29,500 km), which is much closer then the pass of this particular asteroid.

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