Huge asteroid expected to shoot pass Earth

According to NASA, the space rock is ‘three times as big as the Statue of Liberty’ and heading towards Earth.

A huge asteroid is heading towards Earth and should come close to our planet tonight, The US Sun reports.

NASA has labelled Asteroid 2017 AE3 a “close approach” space rock and will be keeping an eye on it.

The asteroid should shoot past Earth on Wednesday evening, AEDT.

It could be up to 853 feet wide (260m).

That would make it almost three times as big as the Statue of Liberty.

The famous New York landmark stands at 305 feet high (93m).

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The asteroid isn’t expected to hit Earth.

Asteroid 2017 AE3 is expected to come within 1.9 million miles (3.05 million km) of our planet.

That may seem pretty far away but it’s not in terms of space.

NASA considers anything passing within 120 million miles (194 million km) of Earth a Near-Earth Object (NEO).

Thousands of NEOs are tracked by scientists to monitor whether they’re on a collision course with our planet.

Any fast-moving space object that comes within 4.65 million miles (7.5 million km) is considered to be “potentially hazardous” by cautious space organisations.

One small change to their trajectories could spell disaster for Earth.

The large asteroid is expected to shoot past without any issues at around 47,000 miles (75,000 km) per hour.

This article originally appeared in The US Sun and is republished here with permission