The space rock, dubbed 2020 OY4, made its closest approach to our planet at 5:32 a.m. UTC (1:32 a.m. EDT) on July 28, when it was located “just” 0.00028 astronomical units—or around 26,000 miles—away from Earth, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS.)
This is extremely close in astronomical terms, and just 11 percent of the average distance between the Earth and moon.
In fact, data from the CNEOS—which tracks so-called near-Earth objects (NEOs)—suggests that the close approach of 2020 OY4 was the closest that any NEO will come to our planet for the next year at least, if you measure by the “most-likely close-approach distance....