The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope studied a double asteroid, shown here in an artist’s illustration, during an Earth flyby in May. (Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)

A binary asteroid named 1999 KW4 passed some 32 million miles (5.2
million km) from Earth on May 25, giving astronomers a good look at a space
rock that won’t come this close again for nearly two decades. The flyby brought
it about 14 times farther away than our Moon, but still close enough for
astronomers to stu