On Feb. 25, 2018, an asteroid 30 ft in diameter flew past the Earth, closer than the moon is to us. The newly discovered asteroid, named “2018 DU,” is the 17th known asteroid to fly past Earth within one lunar distance (the distance between the Earth and the Moon, approximately 250,000 miles) since the beginning of the year, and the eighth one in February alone.

Sixteen days prior to the 2018 DU asteroid event, on Feb. 9, 2018, one day after it was discovered, asteroid 2018 CN2 flew past the Earth at a distance of one-sixth the distance of the moon from the earth (43,000 miles). It was an estimated 60 ft in diameter—the size of a house.

Asteroid 2018 DU is in the center of the photo. The telescope tracked the motion of the asteroid, which made the stars look like streaks of light.

As of this writing, there are 17,739 known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), which are asteroids within 120 million miles. Roughly 2,000 of these are considered potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) based on their size and trajectory.

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