The universe appears to have sent us an early Christmas present: the large asteroid that tumbled safely past Earth last week was, in fact, two asteroids melded into one object that resembles a snowman.
The asteroid, named 2024 ON, zipped past Earth on Sept. 17 at 19,842 mph (31,933 kph), which is roughly 26 times the speed of sound. The space rock is huge — 1150 feet (350 meters) long, about the size of a skyscraper — but it safely floated past Earth at a distance of 620,000 miles (1 million kilometers), aka over 2.5 times the average distance between the moon and Earth.
