A space rock the size of an aircraft carrier will come closer to Earth than the Moon on Tuesday, but experts say there is no cause for alarm.
The 1,300ft wide rock, 2005 YU55, will miss by 201,700 miles. It may be visible to amateur astronomers with suitable equipment.
If 2005 YU55 hit Earth it would unleash a 4,000–megaton blast, many times the yield of the most powerful nuclear bomb. The impact could wipe out a city the size of London or New York. If it landed in the sea it would cause a 70ft high tsunami. But experts stress there is no chance of such a disaster happening because the asteroid's trajectory is well understood.
They calculate that it will approach to within 0.85 times the distance of the Moon from the Earth at 10.28pm GMT tomorrow.
Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: ''Even when something of a reasonable size is that close to the Earth the fact that it's pretty hard to see tells you something about how little warning you have. But the distance between us and the asteroid is still many times the diameter of the Earth, so it doesn't present any risk to us at all. There really is nothing to worry about.''
Only a ''fairly violent'' force would be able to shift the object on to a collision course, he said.
However, he added: ''It does demonstrate that occasionally things do come very close. It's comforting to know that some of the work to identify these objects has been very successful.''
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