A outer space rock music almost twice the size of it of the Eiffel Tower is due to fly by the Earth on August 10 .
According to NASA , Asteroid 2006 QQ23 is 570 meter ( 1,870 feet ) in diameter and is traveling at speeds of approximately 16,740 kilometre per time of day ( 10,400 miles per minute ) . It will come up close enough to be classified as a near - Earth asteroid and is trademark " potentially risky " – but astronomer are percipient that there is nothing to fear from the celestial aim .
To forgather " potentially wild " position , an asteroid has to pass within a length of 0.05 astronomic units from the Earth and at 0.049 astronomical units , Asteroid 2006 QQ23 onlyjustmeets the criteria . To put that into view , 0.049 astronomic units translates to 7.48 million kilometers ( or 4.65 million miles ) .
As Lindley Johnson from NASA ’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office toldCNN , it is " more or less benign " . Around six objects of its size come this close to Earth in any one yr , so it is nothing out of the ordinary . An impact is a much rarer effect and only take place once every two or three hundred , Johnson added .
An impact on that scale would be highly rare , but we do it that a risk exists . Over the last century and a minute , we have collected evidence of several declamatory meteors entering our standard atmosphere , and many more are likely to have dropped into the sea unnoticed . For illustration , only last month , a suspected meteorcrashed into an Indian rice paddy . The result muddle was just 1.5 meters ( 5 foot ) deep and no one was harm .
On a slightly larger shell , a meteorcame tumble towards Earth at speeds of 32 klick ( 20 mile ) per second late last class , hitting the Earth ’s air above the Bering Sea shortly before the holidays . Despite being the largest " striking " since the2013 Chelyabinsk explosionin Russia and exploding with 10 time the energy of the nuclear bomb that arrive at Hiroshima , it went virtually unobserved – only remark because it was picked up by US military satellites .
Johnson say reporters at the time that impacts with meteors of that sizing ( 10 beat or 33 feet ) hap just once every two or three centuries .
NASA estimates there are some900 near - dry land objectsof more than 1,000 meters ( 3,280 base ) , which – if they were to break apart in the amiss place – could do a fair amount of damage . Indeed , asimulationinvolving blank space sway measuring 50 - 80 m ( 165 - 260 feet ) leave New York City in ruins .