NASA, ESA failure: Misses asteroid that flew closer to Earth than satellites

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and many other agencies with all their sophisticated telescopes, tracking the interstellar objects, recently suffered a major failure.

Astronomers failed to detect a small giraffe-sized asteroid named 2025 TF that zoomed past Antarctica, closer to the Earth than most of the satellites circling around the planet.

According to the European Space Agency, the interstellar object passed just 265 miles above the Earth’s surface on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. It was detected hours later by a NASA-funded mission’s, Catalina Sky Survey, observations.

ESA estimated the size of the asteroid to be around 3.3 to 9.8 feet wide and said, “It posed no serious threat to the Earth and might have burned up as a fireball had it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.”

For an object to be considered potentially hazardous, it must measure at least 460 feet in diameter and must follow an orbit that comes within 4.65 million miles of Earth.

2025 TF did not meet the threshold and therefore, its size and orbit might also be the reason that it evaded detection.

NASA has halted public communications amid the ongoing U.S. government shutdown. However, its Near-Earth Object Studies website notes that the tiny asteroid is not expected to approach Earth again until 2087.