Asteroid the size of a football field whizzes alarmingly close by Earth

An asteroid known as 2018 GE3 soared close — by cosmic standards — past Earth early Sunday morning just hours after being spotted by astronomers.

From end to end, the rocky body measured an estimated 157 to 361 feet; the larger approximation is the length of a football field.

It was about 119,500 miles away from Earth — for comparison the moon is 250,000 miles away — when it passed by at its closest point at about at about 2:41 a.m. Eastern time.

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

Astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona were the first to observe the asteroid.

In 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor came within 20 meters of Earth. Upon entering the atmosphere, the rock exploded, sending small fragments to the ground and breaking windows and injuring dozens.

GALLERY: Other asteroids have left bigger impressions on Earth both literally and figuratively. Here's a look at some of the most significant:</s>CBS Local — An asteroid came alarmingly close to striking the Earth on April 15, just hours after the large space rock was spotted flying through the solar system.

According to EarthSky.org, the 150-foot asteroid wasn’t located until April 14 by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. The object, labeled 2018 GE3, passed within 119,500 miles of the Earth around 2:41 a.m. Eastern Time on Sunday morning. While it doesn’t sound like a short distance, 2018 GE3 was twice as close to the Earth as the moon is, which has an average orbit of 238,900 miles away.

It swept by at half the moon's distance Sunday, just hours after being detected. Its size is 3 to 6 times that of the space rock that penetrated the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. pic.twitter.com/WNT6z8KuZY

The “medium-sized” space object is reportedly over three times the size of a meteor that entered the atmosphere over Russia in 2013 and injured more than 1,000 people. That incident also reportedly damaged thousands of buildings in the area which had their windows blown out by the meteor’s shock wave.

NASA, which funds the Catalina Sky Survey, noted that 2018 GE3 passed even closer to the moon about four hours after its close call with Earth. The surprise encounter is reportedly the closest this particular rock has ever come to hitting Earth since 1930.

Will 2018 GE3 collide with the Earth one day?

NASA isn’t sure and labeled the rock’s orbit around the solar system “highly uncertain.” 2018 GE3 will make its next pass by the planet in about two and a half years.</s>CBS Local — An asteroid came alarmingly close to striking Earth on April 15, just hours after the large space rock was spotted flying through the solar system.

According to EarthSky.org, the 150-foot asteroid wasn’t located until April 14 by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. The object, labeled 2018 GE3, passed within 119,500 miles of the Earth around 2:41 a.m. Eastern Time on Sunday morning. While it doesn’t sound like a short distance, 2018 GE3 was twice as close to the Earth as the moon is, which has an average orbit of 238,900 miles away.

It swept by at half the moon's distance Sunday, just hours after being detected. Its size is 3 to 6 times that of the space rock that penetrated the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. pic.twitter.com/WNT6z8KuZY

The “medium-sized” space object is reportedly over three times the size of a meteor that entered the atmosphere over Russia in 2013 and injured more than 1,000 people. That incident also reportedly damaged thousands of buildings in the area which had their windows blown out by the meteor’s shock wave.

NASA, which funds the Catalina Sky Survey, noted that 2018 GE3 passed even closer to the moon about four hours after its close call with Earth. The surprise encounter is reportedly the closest this particular rock has ever come to hitting Earth since 1930.

Will 2018 GE3 collide with the Earth one day?

NASA isn’t sure and labeled the rock’s orbit around the solar system “highly uncertain.” 2018 GE3 will make its next pass by the planet in about two and a half years.</s>An asteroid estimated to be at least 150 feet in diameter made an alarmingly close pass to Earth on Sunday morning just hours after it was first observed by astronomers.

The asteroid, named Asteroid 2018 GE3, was closest to Earth at around 2.41 a.m. ET on April 15 when it was spotted about 119,500 miles away, EarthSky.org reports. That’s closer than the moon, which orbits Earth at an average distance of 238,900 miles. GE3 also passed close to the moon later that morning on its journey around the sun.

According to EarthSky.org, Asteroid 2018 GE3 could be as much as six times bigger than the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which exploded over central Russia in 2013. When the rock hit the atmosphere it caused a bright flash, and thousands of fragments fell throughout the region of Chelyabinsk, breaking windows and injuring about 1,500 people. If GE3 had entered Earth’s atmosphere it could have caused similar, if not more severe, damage.

The asteroid was first observed by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey project, based at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab in Tucson, Arizona.</s>I got this notice in email from NASA about a surprise asteroid that gave us only one day of warning passing halfway between the Earth and the moon. It was the largest known asteroid to ever pass that close to Earth in observational history.SURPRISE ASTEROID FLYBY: With little warning, on Sunday, April 15th,2018 GE3 was discovered just the day before as it plunged inward from the asteroid belt. A quick-thinking amateur astronomer in Europe was able to record a video of the asteroid as it flew by.With little warning, a relatively large asteroid flew through the Earth-Moon system on April 15th only 192,200 km (0.5 Lunar Distance) from our planet. 2018 GE3 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey approaching Earth on April 14th. Hours later, amateur astronomer Michael Jäger of Weißenkirchen Austria video-recorded the space rock rushing through the southern constellation Serpens:According to Wikipedia , 2018 GE3 is the largest known asteroid to pass that close to Earth in observational history," says Jäger. "It was shining like a 13th magnitude star at the time of my observations."This puts it into the same class as the 60-meter Tunguska impactor that leveled a forest in Siberia in 1908. A more recent point of comparison is the Chelyabinsk meteor-a ~20-meter asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013, shattering windows and toppling onlookers as a fireball brighter than the sun blossomed in the blue morning Ural sky. 2018 GE3 could be 5 to 6 times wider than that object.Based on an observational arc of only 1 day, 2018 GE3 appears to follow an elliptical orbit which stretches from the asteroid belt to deep inside the inner solar system. Every ~2.5 years the space rock crosses the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars - although not necessarily making close approaches to the planets themselves.NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has made an interactive orbit viewer available online here</s>A HUGE asteroid appeared without warning over the weekend, barely missing Earth.

According to EarthSky.org, the asteroid was spotted 192,500km away - a distance closer than the moon.

The asteroid, labelled Asteroid 2018 GE3, was closest to Earth around 2:41am ET on April 15 and was estimated to be up to 110 metres wide.

EarthSky.org said that 2018 GE3 could be as much as six times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which exploded in 2013 over central Russia.

When the extraterrestrial object hit the atmosphere it caused a bright flash, and thousands of rock fragments fell throughout the region of Chelyabinsk, causing damage to infrastructure and injuring approximately 1,500 people.

If the asteroid had entered the Earth's atmosphere, it is likely that much of the space rock would have disintegrated, however a mass this large could have caused similar, if not more severe, damage.</s>CBS Local — An asteroid came alarmingly close to striking the Earth on April 15, just hours after the large space rock was spotted flying through the solar system.

According to EarthSky.org, the 150-foot asteroid wasn’t located until April 14 by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. The object, labeled 2018 GE3, passed within 119,500 miles of the Earth around 2:41 a.m. Eastern Time on Sunday morning. While it doesn’t sound like a short distance, 2018 GE3 was twice as close to the Earth as the moon is, which has an average orbit of 238,900 miles away.

It swept by at half the moon's distance Sunday, just hours after being detected. Its size is 3 to 6 times that of the space rock that penetrated the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. pic.twitter.com/WNT6z8KuZY

The “medium-sized” space object is reportedly over three times the size of a meteor that entered the atmosphere over Russia in 2013 and injured more than 1,000 people. That incident also reportedly damaged thousands of buildings in the area which had their windows blown out by the meteor’s shock wave.

NASA, which funds the Catalina Sky Survey, noted that 2018 GE3 passed even closer to the moon about four hours after its close call with Earth. The surprise encounter is reportedly the closest this particular rock has ever come to hitting Earth since 1930.

Will 2018 GE3 collide with the Earth one day?

NASA isn’t sure and labeled the rock’s orbit around the solar system “highly uncertain.” 2018 GE3 will make its next pass by the planet in about two and a half years.</s>A HUGE asteroid appeared without warning over the weekend, barely missing Earth.

According to EarthSky.org, the asteroid was spotted 192,500km away - a distance closer than the moon.

The asteroid, labelled Asteroid 2018 GE3, was closest to Earth around 2:41am ET on April 15 and was estimated to be up to 110 metres wide.

EarthSky.org said that 2018 GE3 could be as much as six times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which exploded in 2013 over central Russia.

When the extraterrestrial object hit the atmosphere it caused a bright flash, and thousands of rock fragments fell throughout the region of Chelyabinsk, causing damage to infrastructure and injuring approximately 1,500 people.

If the asteroid had entered the Earth's atmosphere, it is likely that much of the space rock would have disintegrated, however a mass this large could have caused similar, if not more severe, damage.</s>The 360ft asteroid, named 2018 GE3, flew within 119,000 miles (192,000 km) of the planet with little warning over the weekend.

 

 Asteroid 2018 GE3 was observed by US-based astronomers The Catalina Sky Survey and Steward Observatory in the early hours of Saturday morning.

 

 Within the next 24 hours, the space rock flew perilously close to Earth, passing at around half the distance between the planet and the moon.

 

 2018 GE3 was one of the largest asteroids, whose measurements exceeded the length of a football pitch, to have ever flown that close to Earth.

The meteor was even bigger than the 50ft-wide asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, injuring hundreds.

 

 Only two near-Earth asteroids monitored were larger, one in 2001 and one in 2002, according to NASA records.

 

 SpaceX engineer Andrew Radar tweeted: “Asteroid 2018 GE3 flew past us today, half the distance to the Moon.

 

 “Around 50-100 m in diameter, it was several times the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, around the size of the 1908 Tunguska event – easily enough to destroy a city.

 

 “We had less than a day's warning.”

“We had less than a day's warning” To date, astronomers have spotted more than 8,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 140 meters wide – big enough to wipe out an entire US state.

 

 A near-Earth object (NEO) is anything that comes within about 30 million miles of our planet's orbit.

 

 One 1,500ft-wide asteroid named Bennu, the most dangerous asteroid on the planetary science watch list, is expected to closely approach Earth, but not impact it, in 2135. 

 

 If it were to strike Earth, the force of the collision would be equal to 80,000 uranium gun-type bombs – the kind of atomic bomb that was used on Hiroshima in August 1945 and killed an estimated 150,000 people.

 

 Congress tasked NASA with spotting 90% of all NEOs bigger than 460 feet by 2020.</s>An asteroid the size of a football field buzzed by Earth Sunday in one of the closest encounters the planet has seen in a while.

At its closest point, the asteroid – called 2018 GE3 – was just 119,500 miles away from Earth's atmosphere, about half the distance between Earth and the moon, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). The estimated diameter of the space rock ranged from 131 to 328 feet, CNEOS reports.

That's nothing compared to asteroids that make up the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which can measure to about 580 miles across, NASA explains on its website. Those asteroids, however, pose no threat to Earth.

The 2018 GE3 asteroid was discovered just one day before it skimmed past Earth in what scientists are calling a "surprise" flyby.

"2018 GE3 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey approaching Earth on April 14th. Hours later, amateur astronomer Michael Jäger of Weißenkirchen Austria video-recorded the space rock gliding through the southern constellation Serpens," Spaceweather.com reported.

WHY NASA IS SENDING A SPACECRAFT TO A METAL ASTEROID CALLED 'PSYCHE'

The asteroid that flew by Earth Sunday was up to six times the size of the meteor that exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains in Chelyabinsk back in February 2013.

That meteor – estimated to be about 10 tons and 49 feet wide – entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 33,000 mph and shattered into pieces about 18-32 miles above the ground, injuring 1,100 people (mostly from flying glass), the Russian Academy of Sciences confirmed.

"It doesn’t take a very large object. A 10-meter size object already packs the same energy as a nuclear bomb," Andrew Cheng, who led a 2000-2001 mission for NASA to orbit and land on an asteroid, told Fox News at the time.

The April asteroid, however, traveling at a speed of about 66,000 miles per hour, would have likely broken down "due to friction with the air" as soon as it entered Earth's atmosphere, EarthSky reported.

MINING FOR ASTEROIDS WILL BE THE NEXT GOLD RUSH

"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," the space website explains. "It might make you feel better (or worse) to know that asteroids enter Earth’s atmosphere unnoticed on a fairly regular basis."

NASA tracks asteroids that make close approaches to Earth, providing data on the distance and estimated diameter of each object. At least three other small space rocks are set to fly past Earth on Tuesday – with the largest measuring 111 feet around.

That's significantly smaller than the 2018 GE3 asteroid.

"A preliminary analysis of the orbit of 2018 GE shows this is the closest this particular space rock has come to Earth at least since 1930," EarthSky reports.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An asteroid, 2018 GE3, sized between 37 and 138 metres (121 and 453 ft) passes 193,000 kilometres (120,000 mi) from Earth, possibly the largest known asteroid to ever pass that close in observational history.