An asteroid nearly 23 feet wide almost hit Earth last week.
NASA's Near Earth Object Program announced that the object, a seven-meter wide object known as 2009 VA, passed within about 14,000 kilometers (about 8,700 miles) of the planet on Friday.
Astronomers at the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey noticed the asteroid's approach about 15 hours before it passed Earth.
The object, which was traveling at about 7.17 kilometers per second, would likely have burned up in the atmosphere, according to a report in the United Kingdom's Daily Mail.
The Nov. 6 flyby by 2009 VA was the third-closest on record for a catalogued asteroid, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release issued Monday.
Two smaller asteroids traveled within 6,535 kilometers of Earth on Mar. 31, 2004 and within 6,150 kilometers on Oct. 9, 2008, according to information available on JPL's website.
Two other asteroids are expected to come relatively close to Earth later this week.
The object known as 2009 UK20, which is between 14 and 32 meters across, will come within 6.5 mean lunar distances (about 2.5 million kilometers) and 2009 VX, which is about 16 to 35 meters in width, will travel within 2.6 lunar distances (about 1 million kilometers) of the planet on Nov. 12, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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