Asteroid Discovered After a Near Miss

Astronomers discovered a new asteroid, four days after it made a near miss of the Earth. The object, now called 2002 EM7, was between 40 and 80 metres across and missed the planet by a distance of only 480,200 kilometres - the 9th-closest brush ever recorded; roughly the distance from the Earth to the moon. Had it actually hit the Earth, it could have flattened a city and caused thousands of deaths.