A giant asteroid, 2,000 feet in size, will become the closest rock to fly past Earth in the last 400 years later today.
The asteroid, discovered in May 2014 by astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson Arizona, will safely fly past Earth at a distance of about 1.1 million miles.
Despite being 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon, this will be the closest an asteroid will come to Earth for at least the last 400 years.
It will approach Earth from the direction of the sun and will become visible in the night sky this evening and also tomorrow through small optical telescopes.
Scientists at NASA say the encounter will be the closest approach for at least the next 500 years but stressed there was no possibility for it to collide with Earth.
