An Asteroid Simply Streaked Over Antarctica, Turning into the Second Closest Flyby Ever Recorded

One week in the past, an asteroid flew so near Earth that it almost broke the report for the closest asteroid strategy ever.

This area shock got here to astronomers’ consideration on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, when the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona noticed an asteroid named 2025 TF a couple of hours after it had handed Earth. Flying over Antarctica, the asteroid got here a mere 428 kilometers (266 miles) from Earth’s floor. For reference, the International Space Station orbits our planet at an analogous altitude, roughly 370 km to 460 km (254 miles).

Asteroid 2025 TF might have solely amounted to a close to miss, however conserving tabs on near-Earth objects like this — even when most miss Earth — is a endless accountability for astronomers.

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Asteroid 2025 TF Flyby

While it could sound like we’ve narrowly averted a destiny seen in lots of catastrophe blockbusters, 2025 TF by no means posed any hazard to Earth. The asteroid is 1 meter to three meters (3.3 toes to 9.8 toes) large, which means that at most, it could’ve produced a fireball within the sky had it approached any nearer to Earth.

Asteroids which can be smaller than 25 meters (82 toes) normally dissipate in the event that they enter the Earth’s environment. There’s at all times an opportunity, although, that these asteroids may fragment and scatter meteorites on the floor.

One instance of this state of affairs occurred in February 2023, when a small asteroid named 2023 CX1 (at just below a meter, or 3 toes, in diameter) disintegrated over the coast of Normandy, France. Astronomers have been fast to note the asteroid, discovering it 7 hours earlier than it entered the Earth’s environment. It turned the seventh asteroid to ever be efficiently detected earlier than influence with the planet.

As it went up in flames within the environment, the asteroid produced a vivid double flare. It then fractured violently, releasing 98 p.c of its kinetic vitality within the blink of a watch and sending greater than 100 meteorite fragments throughout Normandy.

As intense as this sounds, most smaller asteroids don’t trigger a lot harm in the event that they enter the Earth’s environment. Even if 2025 TF had come any nearer to Earth, it wouldn’t have been disastrous for us.

The Top Two Closest Asteroid Approaches

2025 TF handed by Earth at an altitude a lot decrease than many satellites — low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, for instance, are situated anyplace from 160 km to 2000 km above the floor. As a consequence, it has develop into the second closest asteroid strategy with out influence ever noticed. The solely different asteroid to be recorded at a better distance is 2020 VT4, which handed 370 km (230 miles) above Earth’s floor in November 2020.

2020 VT4 is considerably bigger than 2025 TF at round 5 meters to 10 meters (16 toes to 32 toes) in diameter. Still, even at this measurement, 2020 VT4 would’ve doubtless disintegrated had it entered Earth’s environment.

Keeping an Eye on Asteroids

2025 TF wasn’t the one asteroid to make an in depth strategy to Earth within the first week of October. On Thursday, October 2, astronomers on the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona noticed one other asteroid, 2025 TQ2, passing over Canada at an altitude of 4,851 km (3,014 miles).

Astronomers preserve observe of a large number of asteroids and different near-Earth objects (NEOs) each month, as shut approaches are comparatively frequent. Unlike 2025 TF, another asteroids that strategy Earth are a lot bigger, though they haven’t come almost as shut. In July 2025, an airplane-sized asteroid (2025 OW) handed 393,000 miles from Earth, and in September 2025, a skyscraper-sized asteroid (2025 FA22) handed 520,000 miles from Earth. Neither of them, fortunately, was deemed to be harmful.

As for 2025 TF, it received’t revisit the outskirts of Earth till its subsequent shut strategy in April 2087, based on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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