An asteroid nearly a mile wide will hurtle past Earth on Sunday July 22.

The asteroid is estimated to be 2,000 to 4,500ft wide, and qualifies as a 'near Earth object'.

NEA (near-Earth asteroid) 2002 AM31 is described as 'the size of a city block'.

Astronomers say not to panic - it will pass through space 14 times further from Earth than the Moon.

Image
© UnknownHurtling through space: The asteroid is estimated to be 2,000 to 4,500ft wide, and qualifies as a 'near Earth object'

The space rock will be tracked live by cameras on Earth and in space.

Astronomy magazine's Bob Berman says, 'Near Earth objects are no longer treasures only for the paranoid, or for those who secretly and strangely are rooting for an early apocalypse.

'The entire astronomical community has reversed its thinking about them over the past few decades. Instead of living on an 'island Earth' with little or no connection with other celestial objects, we now feel that collisions with comets or asteroids change the evolution of our biosphere, and maybe even seeded our world with the amino acids that started life long ago.

'In other words, these are important entities. Not to mention, there's always that exciting little hint of danger.'

The Slooh website will stream the event on www.slooh.com.

'One of our missions at Slooh is to provide the public with free, live views on fascinating celestial happenings,' says Patrick Paolucci, President at Slooh.

'Near-Earth asteroid 153958 (2003 AM31) represents 1 of approximately 9,000 whizzing past Earth at any given moment, and we wanted to highlight this one as it's only 13.7 lunar distances from Earth - similar to near-Earth asteroid LZ1 which zoomed past us unexpectedly mid-June.'