Newly Discovered Asteroid Whizzes Past Earth

PASADENA, CA — A newly discovered asteroid the size of a bus is whizzing past earth today, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

JPL predicted the asteroid would "safely zoom past Earth" Thursday about 13,000 miles above the planet's surface. In the cosmic scheme of things, that is pretty close, but it even if the asteroid were headed straight toward earth, it's small enough not to pose much of a threat. The asteroid is one of millions out there, but most don't pass by close enough to be discovered.

Scientists believe The "2020 SW" asteroid to be about 15-30 feet in size based on its brightness, JPL reported.

"Although it's not on an impact trajectory with Earth, if it were, the space rock would almost certainly break up high in the atmosphere, becoming a bright meteor known as a fireball," according to JPL.

The asteroid was discovered Friday by Catalina Sky Survey, which is based in Arizona and funded by NASA. It made its closest pass by Earth at 4:12 a.m. above the southeastern Pacific Ocean.

Scientists have ruled out any chance of impact, and it is believed that there are 100 million asteroids that are similar in size, but are harder to discover unless they are close to Earth, JPL reported.

"There are a large number of tiny asteroids like this one, and several of them approach our planet as close as this several times every year," said Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL. "In fact, asteroids of this size impact our atmosphere at an average rate of about once every year or two."

"The detection capabilities of NASA's asteroid surveys are continually improving, and we should now expect to find asteroids of this size a couple days before they come near our planet."

NASA has been tasked with finding 90% of near-Earth asteroids that are 460 feet or larger in size, according to JPL.

"These asteroids pose a much greater threat if they were to impact, and they can be detected much farther away from Earth, because they're simply much brighter than the small ones," JPL reported.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.