Asteroid news: NASA tracks a 64,700MPH space rock on Earth 'approach' – Will it hit?

“If a comet or asteroid approach brings it to within 1.3 astronomical units (au) from the Sun, we call it a near-Earth object.”

A single astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the Sun – about 93 million miles (149.6 million km).

For comparison, planet Mars orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 1.5 au.

Because many of the asteroids approaching Earth are absolutely cataclysmic in size, NASA dubbed it “prudent” to track them.

The agency said: “It seems prudent to mount efforts to discover and study these objects, to characterise their sizes, compositions and structures and to keep an eye upon their future trajectories.”

source: express.co.uk