Yesterday an asteroid nearly crashed into our Earth’s surface. Thankfully, astronomers were able to locate the large space rock and identify that it would not crash.

In the past, it would have been impossible to track items outside of the surface but today NASA has easy access to this information. The tool used is called Scout and it serves as an alert system for alarming asteroids that get close to Earth. After it tracks an object, the device begins a series of calculations that can tell if the Earth is in danger. This process tends to take a couple hours for the system to complete.

Thankfully this asteroid was 310,000 miles away, according to USA Today. Although it may seem very far, that was close enough to scare many astronomers at first. This is because it was headed for Earth, but curved eventually, eliminating danger of crashing into it. We should be thankful for this change of direction because even small asteroids have the potential to wipe out an entire large city.

It is very important for NASA to have technology like this because it allows fears to be eliminated about unknown objects. Having a five day warning that the system gives is an improvement from earlier models and new equipment is being made and studied every day. Based on this margin, the rock was first discovered around Oct. 25, according to NASA.

Luckily, last night’s asteroid ended up being a comfortable distance away from us but there is still a scary chance that another could hit in the future. For now, the world will just have to hope that does not happen.