An asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier passed between the earth and the moon early Wednesday morning.

The U.S. space agency NASA said the 400-meter-wide asteroid, known as “2005 YU55”, was traveling at a speed of 46-thousand-670 kilometers per hour. It said the asteroid’s closest approach to Earth was a distance of 325-thousand kilometers.

NASA said earlier that if the spherical rock were to hit Earth, the impact would be equivalent to the power of 65-thousand nuclear bombs.

The space agency said this is the first time an object of the asteroid's size traveled this close to Earth since 1976.