NASA warning over three huge asteroids set to pass close by Earth this weekend

The asteroids will pass by on Saturday
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Nick Charity9 November 2018

Three huge asteroids are due to fly close to the Earth this weekend, NASA has warned.

The asteroids measure between 13 and 28 metres across and will make a fly-by from around 2pm tomorrow, the space agency has said.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed the three near earth objects are due over the next few days, with one to pass by nearer to Earth than the moon.

The first asteroid, designated Asteroid 2018 VS1, will skim past our planet by 861,700 miles at around 2.03pm on Saturday - nearly four times the distance of the moon and hurtling at 10 kilometres a second.

File: Three near-Earth objects will pass through our space tomorrow. They won't be any here near as large as the 83-mile wide asteroid Lutetia, pictured, which made its closest approach in 2010 between Mars and Jupiter , captured by the Rosetta.
Getty Images

The second, VR1, will be much farther, at 3.12 million miles. But the third will be the closest, passing at only 237,037 miles - nearer to earth than the moon.

The 18-metre VX1 will pass the Earth at around 6.20pm tomorrow.

NASA said near-Earth objects (NEOs) are usually composed of water ice and dust particles.

"They are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood," said the Centre for NEO studies.

"Comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

"The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago."

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