A football-field-size asteroid is heading for our Earth....or is it? An asteroid so big that astronomers have dubbed it "The Beast" will get perilously close to Earth this weekend, although it poses no chance of actually hitting the planet, NASA reports.
The mammoth asteroid 2014 HQ124, which is as big as a football stadium, will zoom by Earth on June 8 around 1:56 a.m., according to Space.com. The Beast will barrel past Earth traveling up to 31,000 mph, but at a safe distance of three lunar distances away.
Despite the fact that there is no immediate risk to Earth, the asteroid's massive size -- about 1,100 feet across -- is enough to worry astronomers.
"HQ124 is at least 10 times bigger, and possibly 20 times, than the asteroid that injured a thousand people last year in Chelyabinsk, Siberia," Bob Berman of the online Slooh community observatory said in a statement. The meteor that blasted glass out of windows and rattled entire cities was only about 55-feet wide.
Even more disturbing is that the massive space rock that'll make a near-earth approach this weekend wasn't spotted by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer until April 23, less than two months ago.
Slooh will broadcast the event live from Australia, featuring time lapse imagery from Slooh's newly renovated robotic observatory in Chile.
Viewers can watch the live asteroid broadcast free on
www.Slooh.com.
