Amid claims that mysterious planet Nibiru will collide with Earth leading to the end of the world, a whale-sized asteroid that had the potential of destroying a city the size of New York skimmed past Earth in November and NASA reportedly failed to notice it.
According to Mail Online, the asteroid 2017 VL2 with a speed of around 5.5 miles per second was just 73,000 miles (117,480 km) from Earth and NASA astronomers noticed it only a day after it passed.
The massive space-rock flew past Earth on November 9, but the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii observed it at 11:24 UTC (23:24 GMT) on November 10. The asteroid with a diameter of 52 - 105 feet (16 and 32m) could have destroyed life within 3.7 miles (6km) of the area of collision.
2017 VL2, which is the 48th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance, belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids, The Watchers reported. The asteroid is expected to come close to Earth in 2125.
Meanwhile, another asteroid is hurtling towards Earth and it will close to the planet on December 16. The asteroid 3200 Phaethon, named after a Greek demi-god, is classified as "potentially hazardous asteroid" and is 3-mile (5 km) wide.
"Phaethon is the third largest near-earth asteroid classified as 'potentially hazardous.' Phaethon will approach within 0.069 astronomical units (au) of Earth (an approximate distance of 6.4 million miles/10.24 m kms) on December 16 when it will be a strong radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo," NASA said in a statement.
The monster space-rock is half the size of Chicxulub, which destroyed dinosaurs, but a space consultant has said that there is no reason to worry.
"Anybody that's bigger than about 500 feet across and its orbit carry it within about 4.6 million miles of earth at any point in its orbit are classified as a 'potentially hazardous' object," space consultant Bill Harwood explained it to CBS News.
"Meaning over millennia — lots and lots of time — gravitational interactions with the outer planets, you know, other objects in the solar system might perturb the orbit enough that it could actually impact the earth."
