The asteroid, dubbed by NASA Asteroid 2018 VE4, will make its closest appearance to Earth around 5.24pm GMT (UTC). Tomorrow’s flyby marks the asteroid’s fifth visit to Earth’s corner of space after it first visited on September 18, 1947. NASA’s astronomers are not expecting VE4 to swing straight into our home world but its destructive potential is nonetheless impressive. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) estimate the space rock measures somewhere in the region of 75.4ft to 164ft (23m to 50m).
An asteroid measuring upwards of 164ft is longer than six London double-decker buses lined up in a row and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
The space rock might no be a planet killer by any means, but even the lower end of NASA’s estimate spells potential danger for heavily populated areas.
In 2013, more than 1,000 people were injured when a 65ft-wide meteor burst through the atmosphere and erupted over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia.
The meteor’s powerful explosion shattered windows across the city, pummelling shards of glass into onlookers’ faces.
READ MORE: NASA 2023 asteroid impact risk: Asteroid twice size of Big Ben could SMASH Earth
According to Dr Matija Cuk, Cornell University in New York, impacts with these smaller asteroids are rare and there are no known instances of them being lethal.
The space expert said: “Concerning smaller meteorites that hit the ground, they are a very low hazard and no human was ever reported being killed by a small meteorite.
“I heard a story that a dog was killed by a meteorite that fell in 1911 in Nakhla, Egypt, and there were also instances of material damage.
“Still, traffic, pollution and even lightnings are much more dangerous than small meteorites.”
Thankfully, the risk of Asteroid 2018 VE4 smashing into the Earth with brute force is absolutely minimal.
Asteroid VE4 is a so-called Near Earth Object meaning its closest orbital approach to the Sun is less than 120.8 million miles (194.4 million km).
NEOs often find themselves on trajectories which bring them close to the Earth, so-called Earth Close Approaches, but for the most part, these are safe for humans.
Tomorrow, the space rock will come no closer than 0.03841 astronomical units (au) or 14.95 Lunar Distances (LD) of Earth.
READ MORE: Mars landing: Will NASA find water on Mars? Could there be life on Mars?
This is the equivalent of nearly 15-times the distance from Earth to the Moon or 3.5 million miles (5.74 million km).
NASA explained: “As they orbit the Sun, Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth.
“Note that a ‘close’ passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometres.”
The asteroid is now barrelling through the void of space at breakneck speeds of more than 10,759mph or 4.81km per second.