A Massive Asteroid Just Missed Earth that No one saw Coming

An asteroid that is larger than a football field whizzed past Earth early this month and no one saw it coming.

It passed between our planet and the moon on June 7th. Asteroid 2020 LD is an Apollo near-Earth asteroid roughly 140 meters in diameter.

The glare of the Sun had masked the approach of the asteroid since November 2019. The asteroid passed closest to Earth on June 5, 2020, at a distance of 300 thousand km.

This is the largest asteroid to pass closer than the Moon this year and likely the largest since November 2011.

The asteroid makes close approaches to Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Several asteroids pass by Earth every year and most are harmless. It was just last year a massive asteroid large enough to destroy a city passed undetected within 73,000 kilometres of Earth.