Space Shot of the Day

NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California captured this striking footage of Toutatis, an asteroid that flew by on December 12 and 13, about 4.3 million miles from Earth. Meanwhile, the Chinese National Space Agency also took interest in the three-mile-long rock by coordinating its Chang'e 2 space probe to fly by and take pictures at a close proximity of 3.2 km (2 miles) and relative velocity of 10.73 km per second, according to an official statement. Toutatis is known to make a trip around the sun every four years and the next close encounter will arrive in November 2069.