Stargazers, astronomers and Armageddon fans had their eyes glued to a livestreamed feed of the solar system on Wednesday, as a “potentially hazardous asteroid” — the size of four CN Towers — hurtled past Earth.
The massive chunk of space rock, known as 1998 OR2, approached our planet early Wednesday in a relatively close fly-by that posed no threat to life on Earth.
It began the approach just before 6 a.m. ET, and was expected to remain relatively close by throughout the day. Experts said it would be visible to amateur astronomers through a telescope, but it was never anticipated to come any closer than about 6.3 million kilometres to Earth.