An asteroid will come within 202,000 miles of earth on Nov. 8--closer than the moon.

According to Scientific American, the asteroid is notable because of its size--bigger than an aircraft carrier. Other objects have come this close to the earth, but not objects of such size.

The close proximity of the object led the USA Today science page to wonder if NASA could have landed on the asteroid. NASA officials interviewed by the paper said that not only would that have been difficult, it would have been too expensive given NASA's budget.

Scientific American said the last time an object of this size came this close to Earth was 1976, and it likely won't happen again until 2028.

Even without being able to land on the object, the fact that its passing by will be big for the scientific community, USA Today reported.

A lot of asteroids are out there, so the more we know about them, the better, astronomer Phil Plait of Discover Magazine's BadAstronomer blog said to USA Today. We are going to learn a lot of science from it passing by.

NASA Asteroid Space NASA