NASA is feverishly tracking the progress of a 1,000 meter wide asteroid that will just miss colliding with the Earth this Friday.
The announcement of this deadly danger was made only recently and is igniting fears of an unprecedented disaster. Were it to change direction at the last minute and head towards the planet, the asteroid will unleash the equivalent of over 15,000 megatons of TNT as it smashes into the surface.
The asteroid called "2014-YB35" is hurtling towards a close encounter with the Earth at over 37,000 kilometers per hour. NASA said the asteroid will pass within 2.8 million kilometers (4.5 million miles) of Earth, which qualifies as a "near miss" in astronomical terms.
This asteroid, however, is no stranger to NASA or astronomers since it's been observed some 380 times so far.
The path of the asteroid shown in a trajectory map released by NASA reveals the asteroid will narrowly miss the Earth.
Astronomers said an asteroid of this size travelling this close to the Earth occurs once every 5,000 years. Were this asteroid to hit, it would trigger an extinction event marked by deadly changes in climate, violent earthquakes and unimaginably large tsunamis that would kill millions of persons.
Bill Napier, professor of astronomy at the University of Buckinghamshire, said there is a "very real risk" of a comet or damaging asteroid hitting Earth sometime in the future, reported The Express.
"With something like YB35, we are looking at a scale of global destruction, something that would pose a risk to the continuation of the planet," he said.
"These events are however very rare, it is the smaller yet still very damaging impacts which are a very real threat."
Experts warn it is only a matter of time before an asteroid capable of "lifer altering" damage collides with our planet.