A Statue of Liberty-sized asteroid just passed really close to the Earth

November 25 was a busy day for the extraterrestrials. According to NASA two asteroids passed close to Earth and can be considered a "near-Earth object" (NEO). One of the NEOs, called 2018 VT7 is about 20 to 60 feet in diameter, which is a typical kind of object that usually passes near to our planet.

However, the other NEO called 2009 WB105 is humungous in size, measuring 170 feet and 400 feet in diameter. At its maximum calculated size, the asteroid is bigger than the Statue of Liberty and longer than a football field.

The 2018 VT7 asteroid came within 2 million miles of the Earth, which can is considered close in cosmological terms. Fortunately, the bigger asteroid will be at a distance of 3.5 million miles away so it won't be a concern for the Earth. The near-earth objects are those bodies that are on an orbit path around the Sun within 120 million miles.

Asteroids are formed of debris from events like birth or death of stars and planets, and most of the asteroids in our solar system are formed of the inner planets such as Venus and Mars.

Another use of these near-Earth objects is using them for resources, as they comprise of minerals which are difficult to find on Earth. There might be a way to extract these materials for generating rocket fuel and producing new space structures.