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The asteroid, christened by NASA's 2019 GN asteroid, is heading for the Earth on a trajectory called "near approaching the Earth". NASA astronauts predict that space rock will travel the Earth in the wee hours of Saturday, April 13th. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) astronomers further reduced the flyby at 2:08 UK time (1:08 UTC). It is this moment that will mark the closest possible approach to the asteroid towards the Earth as it wraps around the Sun.
And when this happens, the asteroid should reach speeds of about 42,578 km / h, or 11.88 km per second.
NASA has stated that the space rock will approach the Earth tonight at a distance of 0.00443 astronomical unit (AU).
An astronomical unit is about 149 million km, which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
The GN asteroid will reduce this distance to only 662,718.6 km (411,794 miles).
READ MORE: How often do asteroids hit Earth?
In other words, the asteroid will pass from an incredibly close distance of 1.72 Lunar Distances (LD) or 1.72 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
But the good news is that there is no immediate risk that the asteroid hits our planet so early.
The GN asteroid is an "object close to the Earth" or NEO, that is to say, it sometimes cross land objects.
NEOs are all comets and asteroids traveling around the corner of the Earth.
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The European Space Agency (ESA) explained: "The word NEO means" near-Earth object ", designating a small body of the solar system that can penetrate into the vicinity of the Earth.
"A broad classification of NEOs distinguishes NECs, near-Earth comets, NEAs, and near-Earth asteroids, which make up the vast majority of NEOs."
According to NASA, the vast majority of asteroids grazing the Earth have been pushed into the inner circles of the solar system by nearby planets.
Many of these rocky objects have formed in the inner rings of the system between Mars and Jupiter.
READ MORE: NASA plans to save the Earth by derailing a 2,600-foot asteroid system
NASA's JPL estimates that the GN asteroid measures between 9.2 and 22.2 meters (32.5 feet to 72.2 feet) in diameter.
The asteroid may not be very large, but its passage is close enough for NASA's asteroid tracking systems to be able to monitor it.
The US space agency said: "When they gravitate around the Sun, objects close to the Earth can sometimes approach the Earth.
"Note that a" near "passage astronomically can be very far in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometers."
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