A large asteroid is hurtling toward Earth — but there’s no need to duck and cover. The space rock, known by the very dull name of 2014 JO25 will safely fly by Earth on April 19, according to NASA. The chances of it pounding our planet and leaving us for the dead? Zero, experts say. “Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with our planet, this will be a very close approach for an asteroid of this size,” NASA said in a statement.
What size are we talking about? Measurements taken by NASA’s NEOWISE space probe indicate the asteroid is about 2,000 feet (650 meters) in size. That’s about 670 yards (613 meters), or about the length of six NFL football fields. And how close is “very close”? NASA says this rock will come about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) from Earth. That’s about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. The moon, by the way, is about 239,000 miles (384,400 kilometers) from Earth. MORE
