The mysterious meteorite suddenly grazed the Earth

A meteorite 16-52 meters long was only discovered one day before it passed the Earth on August 28.

According to Science Alert, although the meteor named 2016QA2 flew over the Earth at a distance of only a quarter of the distance between the Earth and the Moon (about 84,568km), no space agency discovered the existence of it was until the Small International Astronomical Society (MPC) found out on August 27, just a day before it grazed our planet.

Photos of 2016 QA2 grazing the sky of Earth.(Photo: Gianluca Masi).

MPC is an organization that collects data to observe meteorites, asteroids, and comets.The newly discovered 2016 QA2 meteorite has a length of about 16-52m.

According to the US Aeronautics and Aeronautics Agency (NASA), the failure to detect near-Earth meteorites is quite common. The ability to detect flying objects near Earth (NEO) with a diameter of more than one kilometer is 90%, NEO diameter 160m or less is 30%, and NEO diameter 30m or less is less than 1%.

An asteroid is classified as NEO if its closest distance to the Sun is less than 1.3 AU astronomers (one AU is 149,598,000 km). Small meteorites are difficult to detect until they approach, but are large enough to cause significant damage to the Earth if a collision occurs.

The trajectory of 2016 QA2 shows that it has moved quite a long time around other planets in the solar system such as Mercury, Venus and Mars.