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Asteroid To Fly By Earth On Dec. 24, NASA

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Dec 16, 2015 09:51 AM EST

On Christimas eve, we get a celestial visitor. A 1.5-mile-wide asteroid will fly closest to our planet on that momentous day.

You can wave to it, but don't miss a telescopic encounter, or you might not be able to spot it.

It has a colourful name of 163899, and another spicy nickname, 2003 SD220. This year, it will be closest to the earth then, yet the distance between the two planetary bodies will be 6.7 million miles. Hence, the earth will be saved from collision.

Right now, it is moving at a speed of 17.5 miles per second, and a very gradual rotation of about one week, according to Gizmodo.

This body is listed in NASA's "potential human-accessible target" asteroids. It will come again to visit us in 2018, yet it would not come close enough for a handshake.

NASA explains that there is just a 0.01 percent chance of asteroids called "near-Earth objects" hitting the Earth in the next 100 years, according to the Daily Mail. It will also not trigger earthquakes.

One more holiday asteroid flyby will be on Halloween day. That isn't a scary one either.

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