There was a lot of talk earlier this year about an asteroid with the highest odds of hitting Earth ever calculated. The chances of an impact by asteroid 2024 YR4 in December of 2032 peaked at about three percent. The asteroid is big enough to cause major damage if it hit. As astronomers tracked it a little longer, though, they realized that’s not going to happen – the asteroid will miss by at least 60,000 miles.

Such close calls aren’t rare. Hundreds of asteroids pass within a few million miles of Earth every year. This weekend, in fact, asteroid 2014 LL26 will miss us by just two million miles. Its orbit overlaps Earth’s orbit, so it passes close fairly often. And it could hit our planet at some point in the future – though not anytime soon.

Astronomers have discovered more than 27,000 potentially hazardous asteroids. And they discover more all the time. The one that caused the kerfuffle earlier this year, in fact, was just discovered in December.

Several automated searches scan the sky every night. Those efforts yield thousands of asteroids every month. But it takes observations over a period of days or weeks to give us a good measurement of an asteroid’s orbit.

Most of the new discoveries are in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But some are close enough to keep an eye on – potential hazards to life on Earth.

Script by Damond Benningfield