Since the dawn of the solar system, rocky visitors from deep space have blazed across Earth’s skies. When will the next asteroid or interstellar object make its pass by our planet?

On Friday (Dec. 19), the interstellar invader, comet 3I/ATLAS, made its closest approach to Earth, coming to within 168 million miles (270 million kilometers) of our planet at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT).