Asteroid Flies by Earth in One of the Closest Approaches on Record

The small asteroid, later identified as 2025 TF, flew over Antarctica at an altitude similar to International Space Station's orbit—one of the closest near misses on record.

Rudy Blalock

Published: 10/8/2025, 10:06:19 AM EDT

Asteroid Flies by Earth in One of the Closest Approaches on Record — Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander captures the Blue Marble while in Earth orbit on Jan. 23, 2025. (Firefly Aerospace via AP)

An asteroid roughly the size of a small car flew closer to Earth than nearly any space rock on record, passing over Antarctica at an altitude similar to the International Space Station's orbit.

Asteroid 2025 TF swept past Earth at 00:47:26 UTC on Oct. 1, coming within 428 kilometers (266 miles) of the planet's surface, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). The flyby represents "one of the closest approaches ever recorded," the agency said in a social media post Sunday.

The space rock measured between 1 and 3 meters (3.28–9.84 feet) across and traveled at an altitude comparable to that of the International Space Station, which orbits approximately 370 to 460 kilometers (230–286 miles) above Earth.

The closest known asteroid was 2020 VT4, a 5-10 meter (16.41–32.82 feet) rock that passed by the Earth’s surface at a distance of 386 kilometers (240 miles) back in November 2020.

Despite the close encounter, the small asteroid on Oct. 1 posed no threat to Earth. Objects of this size can create fireballs if they enter Earth's atmosphere and could lead to small meteorites reaching the ground.

The asteroid went undetected until after it had already finished passing by at its nearest point. The Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded project based at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, first spotted the asteroid several hours after it had passed Earth.

Astronomers from ESA's Planetary Defence Office quickly moved to observe the asteroid after it had been discovered, using the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope located in Siding Spring, Australia. The quick response allowed scientists to determine the closest approach distance and timing with precision.

"Tracking down a metre-scale object in the vast darkness of space at a time when its location is still uncertain is an impressive feat," the ESA said in its Oct. 6 news release.

The Catalina Sky Survey operates as part of NASA's Near Earth Object Observation Program under the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The project focuses entirely on looking for and tracking near-Earth objects to help meet a congressional mandate requiring the cataloging of at least 90 percent of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters (459 feet) .

Threat Level Downgraded

Earlier this year, scientists successfully downgraded the threat level of another asteroid, 2024 YR4, which had initially posed a small but concerning collision risk for 2032.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, discovered in December 2024 by the ATLAS telescope in northern Chile, initially had impact odds as high as 2.8 percent for December 2032. However, later observations using advanced telescopes reduced the impact probability to just 0.004 percent, according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies.

“An asteroid of this size could cause severe damage to a local region if it were to impact Earth and so it attracted the attention of the global planetary defence community and triggered the efforts of international asteroid response groups,” the ESA said in a statement at the time.

According to the ESA, impact probabilities are often initially overestimated, with additional observations typically providing more precise trajectory calculations that reduce perceived risks.