'Potentially hazardous asteroid' to rip through Earth's orbit on Halloween

Nasa has warned that a newly discovered "potentially hazardous asteroid" will pass perilously close by Earth on Monday, so just in time for Halloween then.

The asteroid, which has been named 2022 RM4, is reportedly 1,083 and 2,428 feet in diameter which makes it just a few hundred feet short of the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai which stands at 2,716-feet-tall.

During its closest approach which is said to be on October 31st it will be within 1.43 million miles of Earth and traveling at around 52,500 mph. Although that is miles away, in space terms it is considered to be very close.

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That being said there are no imminent signs of danger and the asteroid is set to pass my Earth without incident but it is possibly that it will be visible from just home telescopes so look to the stars if you want to see that.

Nasa flags anything that comes within 120 million miles of Earth as a 'near-Earth object.' in addition any large object that is within 4.65 million of Earth is flagged as 'potentially hazardous' hence 2022 RM4 being given that title.

Once these objects have been identified astronomers then observe them to see if they deviate from their predicted course and end up on a potentially devastating collision course toward Earth.

In September, Nasa deliberately crashed one of its spacecraft into an asteroid on what was called a 'Earth-saving' mission. The successful mission saw the asteroid on partially knocked off course, even though its wasn't set to hit Earth anyway.

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