NASA researchers say the last asteroid of the year, almost twice the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza 2017 AE3 will approach the Earth on 29 December.
According to the US space agency, the 2017 AE3 will pass within 3.5 million kilometres of Earth, so it poses no threat to us because its celestial path does not cross Earth's orbit - from from RT. The estimated diameter of the asteroid is between 120 metres and 260 metres.
Another space rock is coming in the first week of January: the 2014 YE15 asteroid will approach Earth on 6 January at a distance of about 7 400 000 km, with an estimated width of 149 metres. Fortunately, this asteroid poses no threat to Earth's inhabitants.
Although the meteor destruction we know from Hollywood movies has never happened in written history, the meteor striking the Earth has caused serious problems. The last time this happened was in 2013, when a small planet exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, causing a shockwave that caused a lot of minor injuries and serious property damage.
The NASA has been paying close attention to the movement of small planets for decades, and recently decided to launch a new mission to find out whether an Earth-based device could deflect an asteroid that threatens to end the world. As part of the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) space programme, on 24 November shot down a space probe from California, which is due to collide with a meteorite called Dimorphos, about 160 metres in diameter, sometime next September.
