Near-Earth object NEOs pass Earth closer than the distance of the Moon. On August 10, 1972, a meteor that became known as the 1972 Great Daylight Fireball was witnessed by many people; it moved north over the Rocky Mountains from the U.S. Southwest to Canada. It was an Earth-grazing meteoroid that passed within of the Earth's surface, and was filmed by a tourist at the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming with an 8-millimeter color movie camera. On October 13, 1990, Earth-grazing meteoroid EN131090 was observed above Czechoslovakia and Poland, moving at along a trajectory from south to north. The closest approach
Near-Earth object for spacecraft. , five near-Earth comets and three near-Earth asteroids have been visited by spacecraft, and probes are en route to two more NEAs. Plans to mine NEAs commercially have been drafted by private companies. The major technical astronomical definition for Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are small Solar System bodies with orbits around the Sun that by definition lie partly between 0.983 (perihelion) and 1.3 (aphelion) astronomical units (AU; Sun–Earth distance) away from the Sun. Thus, NEOs are not necessarily currently near the Earth, but they can potentially approach the Earth relatively closely. However, the term is also used more flexibly