Many asteroids flew past Earth pretty closely earlier this month.
Here's what you need to know about some of them:
1. Two asteroids dubbed 2017 TL4 and 2017 UG3 passed by Earth on October 25, 2017, within a minute's gap, NASA's Close Approaches page revealed.
According to the latest update, 2017 TL4 flew past Earth at 9:47 pm UK time while 2017 UG3 passed by a minute later.
2. The near-Earth asteroid TL4 has a diameter of around 81 metres, which is equal to the size of a football pitch, while UG3 is around 22 metres in diameter, bigger than a cricket pitch.
3. Two more near-Earth asteroids — 2017 UH and its sister asteroid 2017 UE3 — approached Earth at 5:22 pm and 5:30 pm on October 25, 2017.
Asteroid 2017 UE3 discovered. Flyby Oct 25 at 16:30 UT. Dist: 4.67 LD. Size: 15-47 m. https://t.co/VBYWfE6rwa
— Minor Planet Center (@MinorPlanetCtr) October 24, 2017
4. The asteroids 2017 UH and 2017 UE3 had a safe flyby without any collision with Earth as they passed by a distance more than 4608000 kilometres (2,863,279 miles), which is about 12 Lunar Distances away.
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5. Both these asteroid flybys were categorised as "close approach" by NASA officials.
6. Two more close asteroid flybys took place before this, when asteroid 2012 TC4 flew by Earth at a distance of 27,000 miles on October 12 2017, and a week later 2017 TD6 flew by at a distance of 191,000 km.
7. "This asteroid (2012 TC4) is one which will get reasonably close, closer than the lunar distance, it is really a topic in the asteroid community. We are using this as a test, as if this were an object that will impact," Detlef Koschny, Near Earth Object manager at European Space Agency (ESA) had been quoted by Daily Star Online as saying back then.
"We use this one as a test because it will teach us for our future observations," Koschny added.
