On January 26th keep your eye to the sky to catch the closest an asteroid will pass Earth until the year 2027.
It’s called 2004 BL86, an asteroid about a third of a mile wide, and it travels at a speed of 35,000 miles an hour. As it zips along it’s orbital path — an orbit lasting about 1.84 Earth years — it will eventually pass by the Earth, getting as close as 745,000 miles away.
That might sound pretty far away but it’s about three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon (the Moon gets as close as 225,623 miles to us). In astrological terms, a pass of just 745,000 miles is a near-miss. It’s actually the closest miss that the Earth has seen, according to NASA.
It’s the closest near-miss to date, that is until 2027 when asteroid 1999 AN10 will pass as close as 19,000 miles from Earth’s surface.