32ft Asteroid passed just 40,000km from our planet today📡

A small asteroid designated 2016 RB1 safely flew past Earth today at 10:20 a.m. PDT (1:20 p.m. EDT / 17:20 UTC) at a distance of about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers, or just less than 1/10th the distance of Earth to the moon). Because the asteroid’s orbit carried it below (or over) Earth’s south pole, it did not pass within the orbits of communication or weather satellites. 2016 RB1 is estimated to be between 25 to 50 feet (7 and 16 meters) in diameter. It is the closest the space rock will come to Earth for at least the next half century. 

But this is not the only close encounter we should expect this week.

Another huge asteroid will come hurtling towards Earth next week, and will sweep by more closely.

The space rock is predicted to whistle past our planet at 31,000 miles (50,000km) per hour, on September 17.

Nasa is not certain of the time of the pass due to relying on estimated calculations, and could be up to 16 minutes out on the estimated flyby.

The huge asteroid could be up to a mile long (1.6km). But luckily the giant will pass at a safe distance of 7.3 million miles. An asteroid would need to be of larger than 0.6 miles wide (1 km) to have the force to wipe out humanity.