Asteroid twice the size of the London Eye to crash through Earth's orbit this week

dailystar.co.uk:

asteroid, twice the size of the London Eye, will crash through Earth's orbit tomorrow, NASA has warned.The agency is keeping a close watch on the space rock catchily named 2013AX as it set to come into close contact with Earth tomorrow.And the exact time it will do so is 7.08pm, UK time.When it passes, it will be around 3.92 million miles above us, travelling at a super fast speed of 16 kilometres per second – and it measures a whopping 440ft in diametre.For stargazers out there, it will travel through the Tucana constellation on during its journey into our orbit.Any large asteroid set to come within 4.65 million miles of Earth is classified as “potentially hazardous” by NASA scientists– and the latest asteroid on NASA’s radar falls into this category.If it does veer off its so-far safe course and crash into Earth, then it is big enough to cause significant damage - in 1908, a meteor that hit eastern Siberia and flattened entire forests measured around 200 metres.Anything over 100 metres long can even create a devastating force around 10 times more destructive than a volcanic eruption.But although there would certainly be widespread damage if 2013AX did hit the Earth, NASA reckons the chances are it will only make a “close approach”.The asteroid actually visits our planet once every few years, flying around our Sun once every 809 days and has so far caused us no trouble at all.Yesterday (Sunday, May 15), a huge asteroid bigger than the Empire State Building was spotted hurtling towards Earth at a whopping 18,000 miles an hour.The atmospheric debris – known as Asteroid 388945 (2008 TZ3) – was 490 metres wide, making it taller than the 440-metre Empire State Building in New York.However, it passed our atmosphere without.