A fast-moving meteor lit up the night skies over most of Utah just after midnight Wednesday. Scientists are calling it a "remarkable midnight fireball." .
Spot the common theme in the following three flashbacks:
FLASHBACK - Nov 6 2009
Asteroid Flyby, Fireball over Utah, Meteor Shower
Asteroid 2009 VA flew past Earth at about 4.30pm. EST. It didn't disintegrate but it passed just 8700 miles (14,000 km) from our planet's surface -- slightly less than Earth's diameter. The space rock was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey only some 15 hours before it approached us.
FLASHBACK - Mar 2009
Asteroid narrowly misses Earth
A 200-foot wide asteroid zoomed past Earth today at an altitude of 40,000 miles - swerving far enough from our planet to avoid total destruction, officials said.
Dubbed 2009 DD45, the large rock was discovered only Friday by Australian astronomers.
The enormous asteroid narrowly avoided a collision with Earth at 8:44 EST, officials said.
Although 40,000 miles sounds like a safe distance, it's only about one-seventh of the way to the moon and less than twice as far out as most satellites, astronomers said.
Had 2009 DD45 slammed down onto the Earth, it would have exploded with the force of a large nuclear blast
FLASHBACK - Jan 2002Huge Asteroid Narrowly Misses Earth
An asteroid capable of causing widespread devastation narrowly missed the Earth on Monday. This asteroid known as 2001 YB5 was discovered on December 26-7, 2001.
Although the nearest the asteroid came to Earth was 390,000 miles (627,644 kilometers), had it arrived four hours earlier on its journey around the sun it would have scored a direct hit.
The asteroid, measuring 300 meters (984 feet) across, passed Earth at 7:37 a.m. For a moment, it was less than twice as far from Earth as is the Moon.
Scientists were unaware of its approach until a month ago, when it was spotted by an American observatory dedicated to tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs).
Astronomers insisted there was never any danger of a collision with Earth. But they warned that the asteroid was one of up to 400,000 small NEOs up to 1000 meters (3280 feet) wide that could strike Earth with little or no warning because of the absence of an adequate early-warning system.
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