Question: What is the nearest object ever to pass by Earth?

Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 11 Mar 2014:

The closest thing to pass by and not hit us would be Earth-skimmers, asteroids that almost hit us but just miss.

A famous one was in 1972, when a small asteroid about 3 meters across flew through the Earth’s atmosphere above the USA for almost 2 minutes and back out into space. The fireball was seen by thousands of people, and lots of photographs were taken.