Earth had a close call Monday morning when an asteroid came within striking distance of the planet.
The asteroid, designated 2009 DD45 by NASA, buzzed Earth at a distance of about 78,000 kilometres.
For context, that's roughly twice the height of some telecommunications satellites that are orbiting Earth.
It's also about a fifth of the distance between Earth and the moon.
NASA estimates that the so-called 'Near Earth Object' had a diameter of between 21 and 47 metres.
The asteroid was discovered on Feb. 28 by Australian astronomers, when it was roughly 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth.
Just days later, it zipped between the Earth and the moon, moving at about 20 kilometres per second when it was closest to the planet.
It was closest to Earth when it passed over the Pacific Ocean near Tahiti, meaning observers in Australia, Japan and China could spot the rock, but observers in North America and Europe were out of luck.
In March 2004, a tiny asteroid designated 2004 FU162 passed much closer to the Earth, coming within just 6,437 kilometres.
The Planetary Society, a non-profit group dedicated to space exploration, said DD45 was comparable in size to an asteroid known as the Tunquska impactor, which struck central Siberia in 1908.
The impact, considered to be the largest in recorded history, flattened an estimated 2,150 square kilometres of forest.
