The best viewing locations, with binoculars and telescopes, were in Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe.
Even there, all anyone could see was a pinpoint of light as the asteroid buzzed by at 17,400 miles per hour (28,000 kph).
As asteroids go, this one was small.
The one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 (m) million years ago was six miles (9.6 kilometres) across.
But this rock could still do immense damage if it ever struck given its 143-thousand-tonne heft, releasing the energy equivalent of 2.4 (m) million tonnes of TNT (trinitrotoluene) and wiping out 750 square miles (1,942 square kilometres).
Daniel Hestroffer, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory, said it's difficult to detect and predict trajectories for the smaller asteroids and that currently only the large ones can be traced with confidence.
"We have been able to predict that there will be no catastrophic collision with the earth for the next century. But for the intermediary sized ones, we still need to work hard on it," he said.
In a chilling coincidence, a meteor exploded above Russia's Ural Mountains just hours before the asteroid zoomed past the planet.
Scientists the world over, along with NASA, insisted the meteor had nothing to do with the asteroid since they appeared to be travelling in opposite directions.
The meteor hit the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring more than a thousand people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in a city with a population of one (m) million.
