MIAMI: An asteroid bigger than a city bus is on track to zoom by Earth Friday at a safe but close distance, less than one-fifth as far away as the Moon, Nasa said.

“Asteroids of this size do not often approach this close to our planet — maybe only once or twice a year,” said Paul Chodas, manager of the Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Called asteroid 2018 CB, the space rock will shave by our planet at around 2230 GMT, the US space agency said. It will remain about 64,000 kilometres from Earth, which is less than one-fifth the distance to the Moon.

The asteroid is estimated to be between 15 and 40 metres in size. Another small asteroid also skimmed by Earth this week. Asteroid 2018 CC passed on Tuesday at a distance of about 184,000km.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2018