NASA has been tasked with finding giant asteroids that pose a potential threat to Earth, but the smaller, less destructive ones aren’t always on their radar.
Such was the case with 2016 QA2, which came within 50,000 miles of our planet on Sunday. In astronomical terms, that’s quite close. The moon is an average of about 239,000 miles away from our planet.
According to Seeker, the asteroid was discovered about a day before it passed.
It is, at minimum, about 80 feet wide, a bit larger than the one that caused damage and injuries in Russia roughly 3-and-a-half years ago.
Had it entered Earth’s atmosphere, the fallout would not have been dinosaur-extinction level, but may have caused some troubles in the immediate area.
Notably, NASA is in the process of engaging equipment that will allow for the detection of such small and close space objects.
