Earth will get another holiday asteroid flyby when a 1.5-mile-wide asteroid will fly closest to our planet on Christmas Eve.
The asteroid is called 163899, but is also known as 2003 SD220. While its flyby on Christmas Eve is its closest to Earth for at least this year, the distance between the two planetary objects will be 6.7 million miles, which means that the Earth is safe from any collision, according to MSN.
The distance also means that those who wish to see the asteroid pass by will need to use a good telescope.
Currently, the asteroid is moving at a speed of 17.5 miles per second with a very slow rotation of about one week, according to Gizmodo.
The asteroid is listed in NASA's "potential human-accessible target" asteroids, and it has the chance to fly by the Earth again in 2018 but still would make no impact. In fact, NASA reveals that there is only a 0.01 percent chance of asteroids classified as "near-Earth objects" ever hitting the Earth in at least the next 100 years, according to the Daily Mail.
Another holiday asteroid flyby had been noted by NASA on Halloween, as reported in a previous HNGN article.
