When this happens, the asteroid dubbed 2019 WP6 will hit speeds of about 4.44km per second or 9,931mph (15,984km/h).
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According to NASA, the vast majority of NEOs are asteroids but there is a small number of Near-Earth Comets (NECs) that approach Earth.
NASA said: “Since their orbital paths often cross that of the Earth, collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches.”
While you're here, how about this:
A Friday 13th post-election asteroid is set to zoom past Earth, Nasa reveals | Metro News
So you might wonder what on Earth it means that an asteroid, dubbed by Nasa as a 'near Earth object' is heading our way on Friday 13th – which is also the day we found out Boris won the general election.
While a near-Earth encounter sounds like cause for concern, the asteroid will actually be passing Earth at a distance of 1.8million miles.
At about 1pm UK time, we're due for the close encounter with a space rock called Asteroid XO1 that could be more than 70 metres wide.
Asteroid warning: Expert predicts 'serious impact' is coming and we need better
Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from Queens University Belfast fears another impact is unavoidable but scientists cannot predict when it will happen.
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“We will need to do something about it. We’ll need to move that asteroid so it misses us and doesn’t hit us.”
Professor Fitzsimmons is not the only space expert who fears the odds of an impact are not in Earth’s favour.
NASA selects site for OSIRIS-REx to collect asteroid samples – Spaceflight Now
Scientists announced Thursday the selection of primary and backup sampling sites on asteroid Bennu, a 1,614-foot-side (492-meter) object shaped like a spinning top. NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer spacecraft has been in the vicinity of Bennu last December, circling the asteroid and mapping it with cameras, mineral-sniffing spectrometers and a Canadian-built laser to measure its roughness.
Scientists’ preferred sampling site, named Nightingale, is located in the northern hemisphere of Bennu, not far from the asteroid’s north pole. A backup site named Osprey is positioned closer to Bennu’s equator.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Two gigantic 'Christmas asteroids' are heading for Earth, Nasa reveals | Metro News
It's definitely not the time to be earnestly considering our planet's chilling vulnerability to doomsday space rocks.
Sadly, we're afraid two gigantic 'Christmas asteroids' are heading our way to remind us that it's more or less inevitable that humanity will have to deal with a devastating impact one day.
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It will come with 3.7 million miles of our planet, which sounds like a huge distance but is tiny in cosmic terms.
Earth was 'stressed' BEFORE the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs | Daily Mail Online
Carbon dioxide produced by volcanoes in modern-day India created acidic oceans which partly dissolved the shells of clams and snails.
Tracking how these creatures changed over time revealed the planet was struggling with the high amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
'The Earth was clearly under stress before the major mass extinction event,' said Benjamin Linzmeier from Northwestern University in the US.
NASA spacecraft snaps photo of massive asteroid trail with mysterious origins
Astronomers have snapped photos of a massive asteroid trail in our solar system, which has eluded them for decades.
A camera on board the NASA Parker Solar Probe has captured footage of the asteroid responsible for the Geminid meteor shower. Developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) was able to see the dust trail coming from asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which astronomers have spent decades searching for.
Bennu is Active Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx Team Says | Space Exploration | Sci-News.com
NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft recently observed several particle ejection events on the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu . OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta and colleagues have analyzed the properties and behavior of particles ejected from Bennu to determine the possible mechanisms of ejection and provide understanding of the broader population of active asteroids.
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