Narrow escape for Earth as closest large asteroid ever recorded whizzes past

A HUGE asteroid appeared without warning over the weekend, barely missing Earth.

According to EarthSky.org, the asteroid was spotted 192,500km away — a distance closer than the moon.

The asteroid, labelled Asteroid 2018 GE3, was closest to Earth around 2:41am ET on April 15 and was estimated to be up to 110 meters wide.

EarthSky.org said that 2018 GE3 could be as much as six times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which exploded in 2013 over central Russia.

When the extraterrestrial object hit the atmosphere it caused a bright flash, and thousands of rock fragments fell throughout the region of Chelyabinsk, causing damage to infrastructure and injuring approximately 1,500 people.

If the asteroid had entered the Earth’s atmosphere, it is likely that much of the space rock would have disintegrated, however a mass this large could have caused similar, if not more severe, damage.