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Another Newly Discovered Asteroid Will Fly By Earth Tonight

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Tom Hale

Tom is a writer in London with a Master's degree in Journalism whose editorial work covers anything from health and the environment to technology and archaeology.

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An asteroid will make a flamboyant entrance tonight by whizzing between Earth and the Moon despite only being discovered by astronomers a few days ago.

On February 2, the catchily named “Asteroid 2017 BS32” will fly just 161,278 kilometers (100,214 miles) above Earth on its closest approach. Amazingly, this asteroid was only discovered on January 30, making it the third time in four weeks that an asteroid will fly by Earth just days after its discovery.

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This asteroid is only around the size of a house and is expected to zoom past at approximately 11.5 kilometers (7 miles) per second, according to NASA.

The Slooh Observatory is hosting a live show about the celestial delight, where a team of astronomers will discuss the Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) while they point their telescopes at it in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the fast-moving space rock. 

"It raises a few eyebrows when we see a number of close approaching NEAs over such a short period of time,” Paul Cox, a Slooh astronomer, said in a statement. “We’ll investigate how this could be."

You can watch it via live stream below starting at 3:23 pm EST and 12:23 pm PST.

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