A large stony asteroid will safely pass Earth on January 18, 2022, writes earthsky.org.

Its estimated size is around 3,280 feet (about 1 km). It is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid due to its size and relatively close flybys of our planet. An asteroid of this size strikes Earth approximately every 600,000 years.

Closest approach to Earth occurs on January 18, 2022, at 4:51 p.m. EST (21:51 UTC). This approach will be the closest for this asteroid for at least the next 200 years for which astronomers have calculated its orbit.

The speeding asteroid will pass 1.2 million miles (1.93 million km) from Earth, or about 5.15 times the Earth-moon distance. That’s a very safe distance, yet close enough to observe easily with a small backyard telescope.