Next month, a huge asteroid is set to skim past our planet, NASA has revealed.
The asteroid, which has been given the catchy name ‘481394 (2006 SF6)’, is estimated to measure a whopping 280 metres - 620 metres in diameter.
At the higher end of that estimate, that’s about twice as tall as Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower!
The passing is set for November 21 at around 00:01 GMT, at which point the space rock will be travelling at around 17,780 miles/hour.
Thankfully, the asteroid will be around 2.6 million miles away from Earth during the passing.
While this might sound far, in astronomical terms it’s very close, with NASA terming the passing a ‘close approach.’
NASA discovers around 30 new ‘near-Earth objects’ (NEOs) every week, and at the start of 2019 had discovered a total of more than 19,000 objects.
However, the space agency has warned its NEO catalogue isn’t complete, meaning an unpredicted impact could occur at ‘any time.’
NASA explained: “Experts estimate that an impact of an object the size of the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 – approximately 55 feet (17 meters) in size – takes place once or twice a century.
“Impacts of larger objects are expected to be far less frequent (on the scale of centuries to millennia).
“However, given the current incompleteness of the NEO catalogue, an unpredicted impact – such as the Chelyabinsk event – could occur at any time.”
