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Skyscraper-Size Asteroid Will Buzz Earth on Friday, Safely Passing Within 1.7 Million Miles 

This image provided by Virtual Telescope Project out of Italy shows a single 180-second exposure asteroid that was approaching Earth, about 4 million kilometers. (Virtual Telescope Project via AP)
This image provided by Virtual Telescope Project out of Italy shows a single 180-second exposure asteroid that was approaching Earth, about 4 million kilometers. (Virtual Telescope Project via AP)
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Skyscraper-Size Asteroid Will Buzz Earth on Friday, Safely Passing Within 1.7 Million Miles 

This image provided by Virtual Telescope Project out of Italy shows a single 180-second exposure asteroid that was approaching Earth, about 4 million kilometers. (Virtual Telescope Project via AP)
This image provided by Virtual Telescope Project out of Italy shows a single 180-second exposure asteroid that was approaching Earth, about 4 million kilometers. (Virtual Telescope Project via AP)

An asteroid as big as a skyscraper will pass within 1.7 million miles of Earth on Friday.

Don’t worry: There’s no chance of it hitting us since it will pass seven times the distance from Earth to the moon.

NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies estimates the space rock is between 690 feet and 1,575 feet (210 meters and 480 meters) across. That means the asteroid could be similar in size to New York City’s Empire State Building or Chicago’s Willis Tower.

Discovered in 2008, the asteroid is designated as 2008 OS7. It won’t be back our way again until 2032, but it will be a much more distant encounter, staying 45 million miles (72 million kilometers) away.

The harmless flyby is one of several encounters this week. Three much smaller asteroids also will harmlessly buzz Earth on Friday, no more than tens of yards (meters) across, with another two on Saturday. On Sunday, an asteroid roughly half the size of 2008 0S7 will swing by, staying 4.5 million miles (7.3 million kilometers) away.

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Several Dead after Light Planes Collided in Australia

Police and firefighters stand near where a few people have died after two light planes collided midair and crashed into a forested area southwest of Sydney, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image via AP)
Police and firefighters stand near where a few people have died after two light planes collided midair and crashed into a forested area southwest of Sydney, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image via AP)
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Several Dead after Light Planes Collided in Australia

Police and firefighters stand near where a few people have died after two light planes collided midair and crashed into a forested area southwest of Sydney, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image via AP)
Police and firefighters stand near where a few people have died after two light planes collided midair and crashed into a forested area southwest of Sydney, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image via AP)

Three men died after two light planes collided midair and crashed into a forested area southwest of Sydney on Saturday.

Australian police, fire and ambulance crews reached the two wreckage sites, located in a semirural bushland area about 55 miles southwest of Sydney, on foot. One plane had burst into flames on impact, The AP reported.

New South Wales Police Acting Superintendent Timothy Calman confirmed that a Cessna 182 carrying two people collided with an ultralight aircraft from a nearby airfield carrying one.

Further details of the victims have not been disclosed.

Witnesses saw “debris coming from the sky” and tried to help, but “there was probably not much that could’ve been done,” Calman said to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . He noted both crashes, about one kilometer apart, were “not survivable.”

NSW Ambulance Inspector Joseph Ibrahim, part of the emergency response team, said to the ABC, “unfortunately, there was nothing they could’ve done.”

The cause of the crash will be investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.