--- title: Asteroid Flies Pretty Close to Earth This Week description: An asteroid whizzed past Earth this week about two days after it was first detected by astronomers. canonical: https://time.com/4631206/asteroid-earth-2017-ag13/ author: Melissa Chan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-11T12:51:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T10:36:06.654Z article:section: Science og:title: An Asteroid Passed Pretty Close to Earth This Week og:description: Astronomers detected it about two days before it zoomed by og:url: https://time.com/4631206/asteroid-earth-2017-ag13/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40c389870f66a4a8/6988b519bc6cfc7d0f3dfbfa/planet-earth.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: planet-earth og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: An Asteroid Passed Pretty Close to Earth This Week twitter:description: Astronomers detected it about two days before it zoomed by twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40c389870f66a4a8/6988b519bc6cfc7d0f3dfbfa/planet-earth.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # An Asteroid Passed Pretty Close to Earth This Week  by [Melissa Chan](https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Jan 11, 2017 12:51 PM UTC  NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring  by [Melissa Chan](https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/)  ## Melissa Chan Jan 11, 2017 12:51 PM UTC An [asteroid whizzed past Earth](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2017/01/10/asteroid/rwB1ZLOJRrHWW1uESkb50J/story.html) this week about two days after it was first detected by astronomers, the _Boston Globe_ reports. The space rock, which is officially called 2017 AG13, flew between Earth and the moon Monday about 8 a.m. EST, notes [Eric Edelman](http://www.space.com/35257-asteroid-flies-between-earth-and-moon-2-days-after-discovery-commentary-video.html), an astronomer with the Slooh telescope service, in a video published on Space.com. The asteroid, believed to be between 50 and 111 feet wide, moves about 10 miles per second and is “stretched out” like a rubber band instead of shaped like a circle, according to Slooh. While it’s [common](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sneaky-asteroid-buzzed-earth-yesterday-180961742/) for asteroids of that size to orbit near Earth, Edelman says the latest object stands out because it came within half the distance of the moon. “What makes it unique is sort of how close by it was to us at that point,” he explains. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4631206/asteroid-earth-2017-ag13/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4631206/asteroid-earth-2017-ag13/"},"headline":"An Asteroid Passed Pretty Close to Earth This Week","datePublished":"2017-01-11T12:51:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T10:36:06.654Z","description":"“What makes it unique is sort of how close by it was to us at that point\"","url":"https://time.com/4631206/asteroid-earth-2017-ag13/","keywords":["Space","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40c389870f66a4a8/6988b519bc6cfc7d0f3dfbfa/planet-earth.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Chan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-chan/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt40c389870f66a4a8/6988b519bc6cfc7d0f3dfbfa/planet-earth.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"planet-earth","caption":"","creditText":"NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4631206/asteroid-earth-2017-ag13/","name":"An Asteroid Passed Pretty Close to Earth This Week"}}]}] ```