Asteroid Flyby!
Monday, January 26, asteroid 2004 BL86 flew past Earth at the short distance of 1.2 million kilometers (over 745,500 miles), at the closest point of its trajectory. That's just over 3 times the distance from Earth to the Moon!
2004 BL86 measures approximately 0.5 km (1/3 of a mile) in size, and is the closest asteroid flyby forecast until 2027. This is the closest Earth will come to this particular asteroid for the next 200 years, and the event offered a unique opportunity to study an asteroid at (relatively) close range (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech).
