On Wednesday evening (Feb. 15), a large space rock will come within 400 miles of Earth, but there is no need for concern.
According to EarthSky.org, the near-Earth asteroid 2005 YY128 will fly by our planet at a distance of 2.8 million miles (4.5 million km) at 7:46 p.m. EST on Wednesday (0046 GMT on February 16). This will be the closest it has been to us in more than 400 years.
However, analysts emphasise that there is little chance the asteroid will strike us on this approach because it is nearly 12 times farther away than the moon is from Earth.
The largest near-Earth asteroids (> 1 km diameter) could undermine human civilisation and perhaps lead to the extinction of the species, according to a report by the Swedish NGO Global Challenges Foundation.
As a result, researchers have a better understanding of the NEO population. For instance, more than 95% of the asteroids that are predicted to pass within 30 million miles (50 million km) of Earth at some point and are at least 0.6 miles (1 km) broad have been discovered by NASA and its collaborators. And none of them will likely represent a threat in the near future.