NASA Says House-Sized Asteroid Eerily Passed By Earth Monday, See How Often Tiny Space Rocks Visit The Planet

A 49-foot-wide asteroid the size of a house flew by Earth on Monday, according to astronomers. However, they assured the people that it was not a cause for concern.

NASA said the newly found space object, dubbed 2022 FB2 by scientists, was initially identified on March 26. The flyby occurs only days after another asteroid, 2022 FD1, past Earth at a distance of 5,400 miles on Thursday.

Another asteroid, 2022 EB5, collided with Earth on March 11 and burned up over the Norwegian Sea.

House-Sized Asteroid Zooms Near Earth

According to a NASA chart of asteroid flybys, asteroid 2022 FB2 is around 49 feet (15 meters) large and would pass within 93,400 miles (150,000 kilometers) of our globe as it whizzes by.

The average distance between the Earth and the moon is approximately 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers).

According to a NASA database, astronomers initially discovered 2022 FB2 on Saturday (March 26).

The flyby came only days after another asteroid, 2022 FD1, flew within 5,400 miles (8,700 kilometers) of Earth on Thursday (March 24).

Astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky discovered the asteroid, which he reported on Twitter.

According to a database maintained by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, asteroid 2022 FD1 is a small space rock with the biggest estimations pegged at approximately 12.1 feet (3.7 meters).

Sárneczky also recently identified 2022 EB5, an asteroid that collided with the Earth on March 11 and burnt up over the Norwegian Sea.

It was spotted barely two hours before impact, and astronomers swiftly made follow-up observations, allowing NASA's Scout impact hazard system to forecast where and when 2022 EB5 will strike the Earth's atmosphere.

How Frequent These Asteroids Visit The Planet

NASA's Paul Chodas, director of CNEOS at JPL, said in a statement: "Tiny asteroids like 2022 EB5 are numerous, and they impact into the atmosphere quite frequently - roughly every 10 months or so."

Chodas claims that just a handful of these asteroids have been spotted in space and watched extensively before impact, owing to their dim nature until the final few hours. A survey telescope must observe precisely the correct region of the sky at just the right moment to find one.

The Asteroid Watch dashboard keeps track of asteroids and comets that will pass near Earth. For each encounter, the dashboard shows the date of closest approach, the approximate object diameter, relative size, and distance from Earth. Hovering over the encounter date reveals the object's name. When you click on the encounter date, a Web page with information about that object will appear.

NASA regularly updates the dashboard that shows the next five Earth approaches within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers, or 19.5 times the moon's distance); an object larger than around 150 meters that can reach the Earth within this distance is classified as a potentially dangerous item.

The distance between Earth and the moon is approximately 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers).

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