An asteroid the size of a car recently made a scarily close pass by Earth.

Dubbed Asteroid 2024 GJ2, this space rock was only discovered on April 9, just days before its near-Earth encounter on April 12.

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the 2024 GJ2 is around 3 metres in size and was discovered on Tuesday by the Pan-STARRS 2 telescope in Hawaii, USA.

Asteroid misses Earth collisionAstronomers have calculated that the space rock will graze by Earth at a mere-12 thousand-mile (19.3-thousand-kilometre) distance — that’s just three percent the distance between the Earth and the moon.

2024 GJ2 measures between 2.5 and 5 metres (8.2 and 16 feet).

The giant space rock has also been compared to the size of a giraffe.