The newly discovered asteroid dubbed "2019 OK" flew by Earth at a distance of just 70,000 kilometres (43,496 miles) at 11:22 a.m. on 25 July 2019. The asteroid reportedly flew at a speed of about 24 kilometres a second.
According to NASA, the object is nearly two-times taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and 2.7-times as tall as the Statue of Liberty in New York and is also about 2.5-times taller than Big Ben in London.
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
"It's a city-killer asteroid. But because it's so small, it's incredibly hard to see until right at the last minute", Associate Professor Michael Brown, from Monash University’s school of physics and astronomy told The Sydney Morning Herald.
#Asteroid 2019 OK pic.twitter.com/oFu8v7hcNm
— Nikhilesh Shah (@shah_nikhilesh) July 25, 2019
The space rock belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids. It was first observed at the SONEAR Observatory, Oliveira, Brazil on 24 July 2019.
