Asteroid to pass near Earth Monday night

A Near-Earth Asteroid will pass by the Earth on Monday night and its passing will be broadcast live online.

The Near-Earth Object, called 2000 EM26, will pass harmlessly by the Earth by a distance of about 2.6 million kilometers (0.018 Astronomical Unit) and will be shown on the Slooh website, according to National Geographic.

Though considered a NEO, the distance between the asteroid and the Earth is eight times the distance between the moon and Earth.

NBC News reports the asteroid is about 885 feet in diameter. It is also traveling at a speed of about 27,000 mph.

Slooh technical and research director Paul Cox said in a statement, "We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids - sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth." He added that Slooh is using robotic telescopes to try and better find asteroids before "they find us!"

Coverage of the asteroid will begin at 9 p.m. EST and can be watched on Space.com as well as Slooh.

A year ago, on Feb. 15, two other NEO events occurred, including the asteroid, 2012 DA14, that came in over Chelyabinsk, Russia.

image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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