Techspot
By Rob Thubron
July 18, 2023
In brief: If a massive asteroid were going to hit Earth, would it be better not to know about it until the object was lighting up our sky? We almost found out last week when a 200-foot object made a relatively close passing of our planet, something scientists didn’t know about until 2 days later.
Astronomers at the Atlas Observatory in South Africa first spotted 2023 NT1 on July 15, two days after making its closest approach to Earth. The asteroid entered a 60,000-mile radius of the planet – about 1/4 the moon’s distance to Earth.