5 asteroids flew past Earth on the same day

Several asteroids made their closest approach to Earth on Thursday (October 24), each passing within 24 hours. Two of them flew by early in the morning, with the others passing by later in the day, although they were not visible from the ground, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Although the orbits of these asteroids mark the closest approaches to Earth ever recorded, they are still quite far away and humans are unlikely to see them moving through space.

NASA scientists determined close approaches when these asteroids came within 4.6 million miles of Earth's surface, or about 19.5 times the distance between the Moon and Earth.

The average distance from the Earth's surface to the Moon is 239,000 miles, although this distance varies at different points in the Moon's orbit.

The skyscraper-sized asteroid 2002 NV16 is depicted making its closest approach to Earth on Thursday, October 24, 2024 in this NASA illustration.

When an asteroid is larger than about 150 meters (about 490 feet) in diameter and passes within this range of Earth, scientists consider it a "potentially hazardous object."

One of the asteroids that flew past Earth on Thursday exceeded that size threshold. The asteroid, called 2002 NV16 , was discovered in 2002 and is about 177 meters (580 feet) in diameter, about the height of a 50-story building.

The asteroid flew past Earth at a distance of 2.8 million miles. NASA has released a diagram showing its orbit around Earth, the Sun and some of the planets near the Sun in the Solar System.

NASA tracks close approaches and calculates the chances of asteroids, meteoroids, and small asteroids hitting Earth. According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 'The vast majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that do not bring them close to Earth, and therefore do not pose a collision risk. However, a small fraction of them – called potentially hazardous asteroids – require closer monitoring.'

The three other large asteroids that flew by Earth on Thursday were all significantly smaller than 2002 NV16. They ranged in size from 23 to 52 meters (76 to 176 feet), which NASA classifies as about the size of an airplane.

Of these, the smallest asteroid comes closest to Earth, at a distance of about 1.5 million miles from the surface.

A fifth asteroid also flew by Earth on Thursday, but it was much smaller. At just 16 feet (about 5 meters) in diameter, it was about the size of an SUV. It made its closest approach to Earth at 184,000 miles.