Science
Building-Sized Asteroid Passed Earth Undetected Until After It Left in December 2024
The Why Files
The Asteroid Behind the Bible's Most Famous Disaster
"In December 2024, a building-sized rock passed between the Earth and the satellites. We never saw it coming. We only saw it leaving. It came out of the daytime sky, passed us, and a telescope in Chile caught it 2 days later, already headed away. Its return date was December 2032."
A rock the size of a 20-story building passed between Earth and its satellites in December 2024 completely undetected, only being spotted by a Chilean telescope two days after it had already left. The Webb Telescope later tracked it and calculated a clean miss for its 2032 return. The incident highlights current blind spots in asteroid detection systems, particularly for objects approaching from the direction of the sun.
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