A large asteroid that will zoom harmlessly past Earth on Saturday will be visible to stargazers using a small telescope or large binoculars, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced Wednesday.
The asteroid will come within 2,560,000 kilometers of Earth at 11:14 GMT on Saturday, which is more than six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
Called (152637) 1997 NC1, the asteroid will be speeding along at nearly nine kilometers a second, posing no threat to Earth as any chance of an impact has been ruled out.
Discovered in 1997, the asteroid is estimated to be between 750 and 1,650 meters wide, according to calculations based on how much sunlight it reflects.
However other estimates suggest it could be smaller, the ESA said in a statement.
