This week a “city-killer” asteroid missed Earth by about one fifth the distance to the moon, and scientists didn’t see it coming.
From the Washington Post:
The asteroid’s presence was discovered only earlier this week by separate astronomy teams in Brazil and the United States. Information about its size and path was announced just hours before it shot past Earth, Brown said.
“It shook me out my morning complacency,” he said. “It’s probably the largest asteroid to pass this close to Earth in quite a number of years.”
Wait for it:
This is the video of the close encounter of Asteroid 2019 OK we have been Twitting all day with the Earth: https://t.co/bjT7uhQJuO pic.twitter.com/3e4UyPcdPl
— ASAS-SN (@SuperASASSN) July 25, 2019