2 asteroids safely buzzed by Earth this past week

2 asteroids safely buzzed by Earth this week

A pair of space rocks came very close to our planet this week, one passing just above and the other below Earth. On October 1, 2025, scientists at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, detected a space rock that was eventually named 2025 TF.

An analysis of the object’s trajectory showed it was closest to Earth a few hours earlier, at around 7:49 p.m. CDT on September 30.

Asteroid 2025 TF passed extremely close, at just 249 miles (401 km) over Antarctica, which is about the altitude of the International Space Station’s orbit.

Meanwhile, on October 2, 2025, astronomers at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona detected an asteroid just hours before its closest approach.

The small asteroid, with the name 2025 TQ2, passed at a distance of just 3,014 miles (4,851 km) over Canada at around 2:02 p.m. CDT (19:02 UTC) on October 2.

That distance is less than half the Earth’s diameter, which is quite a close distance for an asteroid to pass.

Earth is in a shooting gallery

Although it might seem strange that two asteroids passed so close to our planet less than two days apart, it was just a coincidence. These asteroid are unrelated. The asteroid 2025 TQ2 is in a category known as an Aten type asteroid. The path of this asteroid shows it orbits the sun every 285 days.

Meanwhile, 2025 TF is an Apollo type asteroid. Its trajectory shows that it orbits the sun in 751 days (2.05 years).

Fortunately, neither object posed any danger. Asteroid 2025 TQ2 has a diameter between 6.5 and 14.5 feet (2 and 4.4 meters). And asteroid 2025 TF was even smaller, at 4 to 8.8 feet (1.2 to 2.7 meters) in diameter.

So, if one of these space rocks had entered our atmosphere, most of it would have disintegrated as a spectacular fireball.

This is a good reminder that many asteroid pass close to Earth all the time. See the illustration below of 10 asteroids that passed closer to Earth than the moon during a 5-day period in September.

10 #asteroids passed closer than the Moon in a 5-day period from September 23-28. All were discovered this month. The largest up to 41 meters wide. #astronomy

— Tony Dunn (@tony873004.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T21:48:42.127Z

Bottom line: Two asteroids passed close to Earth a couple days apart. One was just above Earth while the other was below. And scientists discovered one just after its closest pass, while they discovered the other just before its closest approach.

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