An asteroid has swooped past Earth – just days after it was first spotted.

The object, known as 2022 OE2, never posed any danger to Earth. It remained at a safe distance of 3.2 million miles away, more than 10 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

The rock is up to 380 meters wide, scientists said, and made its closest approach to Earth at 12.23am eastern time on Thursday morning.

It is one of around 15,000 Apollo-class asteroids. That means they are in orbit around the Sun in such a way that they cross over with our own orbit.

The object was only found on 26 July, less than two weeks before it made its closest path with Earth. While NASA aims to spot and categorise all of what it calls near-Earth objects or NEOs, the vast expanse of space and the relatively small size of such asteroids can often make it difficult.

Read more: yahoo