Asteroid larger than London Eye to ‘make close approach’ with Earth within days

An asteroid that is believed to be bigger than the London Eye will come close to Earth's orbit next week.

The rock named 2007 UY1 was first sighted on October 18, 2007, and has an estimated diameter of 67km to 150km.

According to NASA's Earth Close Approaches list, the asteroid is expected to come within close proximity to Earth's orbit on February 8, although it is not deemed hazardous or expected to crash directly into the planet.

However, the data gathered on February 2, 2022, predicts that it will come close to Earth's orbit but will remain just over five million kilometres away – which isn't a lot in space terms.

It is not clear if and where you will be able to catch a glimpse of it this time around – although it's expected to zoom past at 6.20am, travelling at 6.5km/s.

According to previous reports, an asteroid larger than the Empire State building will pass Earth on March 4.

Labelled as 138971 (2001 CB21), the big rock has been designated as “potentially hazardous” and measures around 4,265 feet wide.

Last month, NASA-funded scientists told how they have found that the way the Earth rotates and orbits the sun means objects darting towards us at night can slip through a network of computerised telescopes.

This means that asteroids could potentially go undetected close to Earth.

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A “near miss” of a 100-metre asteroid bolting past Earth only 43,000 miles away was enough to rattle the astronomical community in 2019.

Given that it was spotted only 24 hours earlier, the US Congress tasked NASA with identifying 90% of asteroids bigger than 140 metres which could destroy a large city if it landed.

As part of Nasa's instructions to combat asteroid threats, it launched a heavy spaceship last year to smash into the moonlet of a comet to knock it off course.

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