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On April 15, 2018, asteroid 2018 GE3 set a record as the largest-known asteroid of its size to make a close pass to the Earth–and at less than half the distance between the Earth and the Moon, that’s a fairly close shave. The 48 to 110 meter (157 to 361-foot) object is between three to six times the size of the object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013.

2018 GE3 was only spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey the day before its close, 193,000-kilometre (120,000-mile) pass, moving at 29.5 km/s, or 66,000 mph. As it whizzed away from us it passed even closer to the Moon, only one-third the distance between La Luna and Terra Firma.
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As the old saying goes, life can move pretty fast, but this is especially true in space, where the difference in orbital velocities between two different objects can literally be faster than a speeding bullet. Last month, British astronaut Tim Peake posted a photograph of a 7 mm (1/4 inch) impact chip in one of the International Space Station’s Cupola windows, suspected to have been caused by a miniscule piece of debris no bigger than a few thousandths of a millimeter across.
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