House-size asteroid makes close approach to Earth. Watch here

A house-sized asteroid safely passed Earth on Friday morning within approximately 62% of the average lunar distance, according to astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project.

The near-Earth asteroid 2023 EY, discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on March 13, came within 2,39,800 kilometres of Earth’s surface. (ALSO READ: Stunning video: Asteroid lights up night sky above English channel)

ATLAS is the first telescope capable of surveying the entire sky once every 24 hours helping astronomers with more accurate classification and identification of near-Earth objects such as asteroids.

Nasa’s Asteroid Watch dashboard displays asteroid and comet approaches to Earth that will be quite close.

Which asteroid is dangerous?

The average distance between Earth and the moon is about 3,85,000 km and Nasa tracks those asteroids that approaches Earth within 19.5 times distance to the moon. According to the US space agency, an object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object.

Although asteroids frequently come dangerously close to Earth, it has been over 65 million years since a disastrous collision with our planet, which is thought to have resulted in the extinction of many species, including dinosaurs.

Nasa’s DART mission as shield against asteroid!

However, Nasa has already conducted the world’s first planetary defence test (DART) against event of any asteroid collision on Earth. Nonetheless, Nasa admits that the plan is purely precautionary, as no such asteroid has a significant chance of striking Earth in the next 100 years.