Bus-Sized Asteroid (2014 HL129) Hurtles Past Earth

An asteroid the size of a school bus narrowly missed Earth on Saturday, passing closer than the distance between the Earth and the moon, Space.com revealed.

The 25-foot-wide asteroid, known as 2014 HL129, came within 186,000 miles of Earth’s surface. That’s about 53,000 miles closer than the average distance between Earth and the moon.

If an asteroid of that size were to collide with our planet, it could destroy a small city. Its impact would be roughly half that of the nuclear bomb that leveled Hiroshima in 1945, according to Mail Online.

NASA scientists and researchers around the world constantly monitor the sky for asteroids that could hit the surface of the planet.

Startling new research has revealed just how vulnerable our planet is to asteroid impacts.

A trio of former astronauts has announced we’re up to ten times more likely to be hit than previously thought – and warn the only way we’ve avoided disaster so far is through ‘blind luck’.

@dennert Actually, a small asteroid safely passed Earth about 8/10 the distance of our moon. It's not all that uncommon.

— Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) May 4, 2014

NASA’s Asteroid Watch tweeted about the near encounter late Saturday, adding that such flybys are “not all that uncommon.”

Agencies/Canadajournal