The giant asteroids, dubbed Asteroid 2019 LA, is en route to flyby on Friday, June 7. NASA predicts the space rock will come dangerously close to our planet on a so-called Earth Close Approach trajectory. NASA’s trackers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) estimate the asteroid will be closest to Earth around 9.40pm BST or 4.40pm Eastern Time. And when the rocky object zips by, NASA said Asteroid LA will reach breakneck speeds of around 22.28km per second or 51,000mph (82,080kph).
Asteroid LA is an Aten-type Near-Earth Object or NEO.
NEOs are all asteroids and comets hurtling around the inner solar system, within the confines of the Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars.
Occasionally, asteroids like LA will cross paths with the Earth’s own orbit of the Sun.
This space rock, in particular, is an interesting object to keep an eye on because of its sheer size.
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According to NASA’s JPL, the asteroid was first spotted flying in Earth’s general direction on May 26 this year.
Since the initial observations were made, scientists have calculated the space rock’s size, speed and direction.
Asteroid LA is estimated to measure somewhere in the range of 164ft to 360.8ft (50m to 110m) across.
At the upper end of this estimate, the asteroid would tower over Big Ben’s clock tower in London, the Statue of Liberty in New York and Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
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An asteroid this wide could be big enough to wipe out a city if it struck the Earth at full speed.
And even at the lower end of NASA’s estimate, the meteor is the same height as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is as long as six London double-decker buses.
So, is there any danger the space rock is headed directly at the Earth?
Thankfully, NASA said the asteroid will miss the Earth by about 0.03555 astronomical units.
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A single astronomical unit equals around 93 million miles (149.6 million km), which is the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
This means Asteroid LA will considerably shorten the distance down to just 3.3 million miles (5.3 million km).
In other words, the asteroid will approach from 13.84 times the distance to the Moon.
After that, NASA does not expect Asteroid LA to cross paths again with Earth in the foreseeable future.