Huge asteroid nicknamed the Giant Pumpkin due to fly past Earth

The asteroid will come shave past Earth at 27,300 miles altitude
EPA
Laura Proto31 October 2015

An asteroid dubbed the ‘Great Pumpkin’ is due to fly past Earth today - but scientists insist there is no need to be scared.

The huge space rock, which is believed to be the size of four football pitches, will miss the planet by 300,000 miles on the spookiest night of the year.

But while the distance may be close in relative terms, scientists said the asteroid will actually remain further away from Earth than the moon.

Dr Detlef Koschny, of the European Space Agency (ESA), said: “The fact that such a large near-Earth object capable of doing significant damage if it were to strike our planet was discovered only 21 days before closest approach demonstrates the necessity for keeping daily watch of the night sky.”

Scientists say there is no chance of the giant asteroid hitting the planet in the next 100 years and it is not included within the ESA’s official list of potentially threatening near earth objects (NEO).

The asteroid, which is 400 metres wide, was spotted by astronomers in Hawaii on October 10 and is said to be travelling at 22 miles per second.

At that rate, it is expected to quickly whizz past Earth at 5pm today.

Dr Marco Micheli, an astronomer from ESA's NEO Co-ordination Centre in Italy, said: "The diameter of about 400 metres has a large uncertainty, as is usual in cases of any object for which we do not yet know details, such as its composition.”

Scientists estimate there are 5,000 NEOs of similar size hurtling through Earth's region of the solar system - a significant number of which have not yet been discovered.

Dr Koschny added: "Objects of this size are often spotted by automated surveys.

"The only difference is that, being so large, they are often found when they are quite far away, out to 2.5 times the sun-Earth distance, and not just before a close approach, as in this case."

Additional reporting by Press Association.

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