2017 appears to be the year of the asteroid close call

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For the fourth time since the start of 2017, a small celestial body will pass closer to Earth than the distance between us and the moon. Recently discovered asteroid 2017 BS32 zips by around midday Thursday.

This latest narrow shave comes just a few days after the closest such flyby in months, prompting observers and some astronomers to wonder if the apparent blitz of tiny planetoids could be more than mere coincidence.

According to astronomer Paul Cox at the Slooh observatory, the apparent bursts of small, close-approaching asteroids were first spotted just before buzzing us initially sparked discussion in 2016.

"One possibility sprang to mind -- that these clusters of smaller asteroids making close approaches to Earth over relatively short periods of time were in fact the fragments from larger asteroids that had broken up," Cox said via email. "However, when we reviewed the orbits of each of the asteroids, we found no correlation between them -- showing clearly they weren't associated in any way."

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