Quarter-mile wide asteroid passes Earth

An asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier has passed by Earth in the closest encounter by such a massive space rock in more than three decades.

Scientists ruled out any chance of a collision but turned their telescopes skyward to learn more about the object known as 2005 YU55.

Its closest approach to Earth was pegged at a distance of 202,000 miles at 11.28pm GMT. That is just inside the moon's orbit; the average distance between Earth and the moon is 239,000 miles.

The last time a large cosmic interloper came that close to Earth was in 1976, and it will not happen again until 2028.

Scientists at Nasa's Deep Space Network in the California desert have tracked the quarter-mile-wide asteroid since last week as it approached from the direction of the sun at 29,000mph.