The asteroid will dash through Earth’s corner of space on a so-called “Earth Close Approach”. As this happens, the asteroid will reach breakneck speeds of more than 20,311mph or 9.08km per second. For comparison, the Concorde supersonic jet could only reach a top speed of more than 1,300mph (2,092km/h). The asteroid is expected to swing past the Earth shortly after midnight, at around 12.14am GMT (UTC) tonight.
NASA dubbed the space rock Asteroid 2019 BX3 after it was first spotted hearing towards Earth this year.
According to NASA’s asteroid trackers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, BX3 was first observed on January 28.
NASA’s scientists also estimate the space rock measures no more than 122ft (37m) in diameter.
Initial asteroid observations place the rock somewhere in the 55.8ft to 121.4ft (17m to 37m) size range.
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The asteroid might seem minuscule when compared to Asteroid 2019 AV2, also headed towards Earth tomorrow, but it is still of interest to scientists.
Because of its fast approach and incredibly close skimming of the Earth, the same rock is considered a so-called “Near Earth Object” (NEO).
NEOs are all asteroids and comets which fly past the Earth just a little bit too close for comfort.
This means all NEOs cross paths with Earth’s orbit at some point in time and are tracked by NASA’s astronomers and automatic systems.
US space agency NASA said: “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.”
Tonight, Asteroid BX3 is expected to approach the Earth from a distance of around 0.04489 astronomical units.
One astronomical unit describes the distance from the Earth to the Sun – approximately 93 million miles (149.6 million km).
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When BX3 approaches the Earth tonight, it will cut this distance down to just more than 4.17 million miles (6.7 million km).
As a result, the space rock will pass by 17.63-times farther than the Moon is from the Earth.
You might not be able to see the asteroid from the Earth but keep in mind the asteroid is more than four-times as along as London double-decker bus.
Much smaller objects have hit the Earth in the past, causing incredible damage, such as the 2013 Chelyabinsk Meteor.