Jet-airliner-sized April Fools' Day asteroid buzzes Earth (+video)
About 150 feet wide, asteroid 2012 EG5 hurtled past our planet Sunday, passing closer than the moon.
An asteroid the size of a passenger jet zoomed near the Earth Sunday (April 1), just in time for April Fools' Day, but the space rock flyby posed no threat of hitting our planet, NASA officials said.
The asteroid 2012 EG5 was closer than the moon when it flew by Earth at 5:32 a.m. EDT (0932 GMT). The space rock is about 150 feet wide (46 meters), according to a NASA records. Scientists with the space agency announced the April Fools' asteroid flyby on Friday, March 30.
"Asteroid 2012 EG5 will safely pass Earth on April 1," scientists with NASA's Asteroid Watch program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wrote in a Twitter statement.
The space rock may have visited Earth on April Fools' Day, but its flyby was no prank. The asteroid crept within 143,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) of Earth during its closest approach, which is just over half the distance between Earth and the moon's orbit. The moon typically circles the Earth at a distance of 238,000 miles (382,900 km).
Asteroid 2012 EG5 was the third relatively small asteroid to buzz the Earth in seven days. Two smaller asteroids passed near Earth on Monday (March 26).
Early Monday, the bus-size asteroid 2012 FP35 came within 96,000 miles (154,000 km) of Earth. It was followed a few hours later by asteroid 2012 FS35, which is the size of a car and passed Earth at a range of 36,000 miles (58,000 km).
