Nasa issue warning about asteroid closing in on Earth today

Space agency Nasa has issued an alert about a huge asteroid that is headed towards Earth travelling at 63,186 kilometres per hour.

The asteroid warning comes as a rocky entity the size of a stadium, named 2012 KY3, is set to pass Earth today (13 April).

2012 KY3 will pass our planet at a distance of 2.97 million miles away – it may sound infinitely far away, but it is actually relatively close in terms of asteroid passings.

It is the job of experts at The Center for NEO Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to monitor near-Earth objects that may pass by our planet fairly closely.

They monitor the risk associated with such objects and use a risk assessment list to determine if there is any danger to us.

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Space rocks, asteroids and planetoids that could present danger are identified and monitored. Celestial objects deemed potentially risky are those with sizes greater than 150 metres which travel within 4.6 million miles of Earth.

The asteroid itself was first identified on 16 May 2012. At around 670 metres wide, it is absolutely huge and almost twice the size of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

In the past, there has been deadly asteroid impacts that have altered our planet irreparably. For example, the impact of a planetoid – a rocky entity too small to be considered a full planet – led to many species of dinosaurs becoming extinct around 65 million years ago.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.