'Potentially hazardous' asteroid worth nearly $5 billion will enter Earth's orbit next week, NASA says - Livescience.com

The asteroid is expected to pass by Earth without harm.

Thankfully for all of our weekend plans, the asteroid is expected to skim past Earth at some distance without making impact, but it will still be closer to us than it has been in 20 years.

Nereus — named after the Greek sea god who was the son of Gaia, the personification of the Earth — will be roughly 2.4 million miles away (3.86 million km), around 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon!

NASA flags any space object that comes within 120 million miles (193 million kilometers) of Earth as a "near-Earth object" and any fast-moving object within 4.65 million miles (7.5 million km) as "potentially hazardous." Once flagged, astronomers closely monitor the objects, looking for any deviation from their predicted trajectory that could put them on a collision course with Earth.

14, 2060, when Nereus may come within roughly 0.74 million miles (1.2 million km) of Earth.

This will put the mineral-rich space rock at a tantalizing three moons distance from the Earth.

If we ever do spot an asteroid headed straight for us, space agencies are working on a solution.

23, NASA launched a spacecraft as part of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission in order to redirect an asteroid by ramming it off course, Live Science previously reported.

China is also in the early planning stages of an asteroid-ramming mission; they propose that by slamming 23 of their Long March 5 rockets into the asteroid Bennu, they would be able to divert it from a potentially catastrophic impact with Earth, Live Science previously reported.