On Thursday, October 12, asteroid 2012 TC4 will come “damn close” to Earth as it passes in between the moon and our planet just 4,200 miles away.
The map from Nasa shows that 2012 TC4 will enter the space between the Earth and the moon’s orbit diagonally from just north of east, before it shoots back out into outer space.
Nasa will use the extremely close fly by – less than the 5,400 miles between London and Los Angeles – to gather valuable data on the asteroid which was discovered in 2012.
Michael Kelley, program scientist and NASA Headquarters lead for the TC4 observation campaign, said: “Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close approach to and safely pass the Earth because they can make preparations to collect data to characterise and learn as much as possible about it.
“This time we are adding in another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid threat.”
The path of the asteroid has been described as a “close miss” by scientists as, in astronomical terms, it is just a hair’s width away.
Rolf Densing, head of the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, said: “It’s damn close.
“The farthest satellites are 36,000 kilometres (22,400 miles) out, so this is indeed a close miss.
“As close as it is right now, I think this prediction is pretty safe, meaning that it will miss.”
At between 10 and 30 metres in size, it is believed to be bigger than the Chelyabinsk meteor which exploded above Russia, damaging thousands of buildings and injuring 1,500 people in 2013.