The asteroid, dubbed by NASA Asteroid 2019 BJ1, will make a so-called “Earth Close Approach”. NASA’s astronomers expect the imposing asteroid to swing past the planet on the evening of Wednesday, January 30. Asteroid experts at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have pinpointed the flyby down to 6.41pm GMT (UTC) tomorrow. During this flyby, Asteroid BJ1 will hit peak speeds of around 37,446.3mph or 16.74km per second.
When this happens, the 220ft-wide space rock will reach its closest possible orbital distance to the planet.
Thankfully there is nothing to fear from the asteroid approach as it will miss the Earth by more than 800,000 miles (1.3 million km).
Despite this, NASA’s astronomers will continue to keep their eyes peeled as the asteroid swings by.
NASA’s JPL estimates Asteroid BJ1 measures somewhere between 95ft and 210ft (29m and 64m) in diameter.
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NASA asteroid warning: A massive space rock will zip past the Earth on Wednesday (Image: GETTY)
At the upper end of this estimate, the space rock is about 30-times longer than a Queen Size bed and 15-times longer than a Volkswagen Beetle car.
Even at just 95ft (29m), the space rock is still 3.5-times longer than a red double-decker bus.
Asteroids smaller than this have been known to cause significant devastation upon striking the Earth.
In 2013, a 65.6ft-wide (20m) asteroid dubbed the Chelyabinsk Meteor slipped past Earth’s asteroid radars and erupted in the atmosphere.
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The Chelyabinsk meteor injured more than 1,000 people and damaged more than 7,000 buildings when it exploded in the air above Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia.
Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth
In the aftermath of the asteroid attack, NASA said: “The explosion released more than 30 times the energy from the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.”
And NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson dubbed the asteroid strike a “cosmic wake-up call” to the dangers lurking in the depths of space.
Thankfully, the odds of Asteroid BJ1 slamming into our home world tomorrow are extremely low.
READ MORE: NASA asteroid strike WARNING: Earth strikes ‘increase THREEFOLD’
But the asteroid was still labelled a “Near-Earth Object” (NEO) by NASA.
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.”
At its closest, BJ1 will approach the Earth from 0.00880 astronomical units or 3.42 Lunar Distances (LD).
NASA asteroid warning: The giant space rock will safely pass Earth without hitting (Image: GETTY)
NASA asteroid warning: The asteroid will approach Earth again in January 2060 (Image: GETTY)
One astronomical unit measures an incredible 93 million miles (149.6 million km) – the distance from Earth to the Sun.
Asteroid BJ1 will cut this distance down tomorrow to just 818,011 miles (1.316 million km).
This is the equivalent of 3.42-times the distance between the Moon and the Earth.
After the asteroid swings past our planet, NASA expects BJ1 to make another close approach on January 13, 2060.