Many asteroids come into the solar system every year due to its gravitational pull. (Reuters image)

A massive asteroid is approaching us, warned NASA. The asteroid would approach the Earth in June, the US government’s space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has revealed the details on its website. According to NASA’s “NEO Earth Close Approaches” web page, the asteroid named ‘163348 (2002 NN4)’ would approach the Earth on June 6. The diameter of this asteroid is from 250 to 570 meters. The NASA predicted that the asteroid ‘163348 (2002 NN4)’ would dash past the Earth at a distance of 5.1 million kilometers. The velocity of the asteroid ‘163348 (2002 NN4)’ would be 11.1 km/s, as per NASA’s estimates. As per a report by Space.com., there are a total number of 25,000 large asteroids in the near-earth space.

Earlier this year, there were reports that an Asteroid 2020 DR2 had slim chances of coming very close to the earth. The Asteroid 2020 DR2 measured around 1,935ft (590m) in diameter. It was said that if such an enormous sized asteroid ever struck the Earth, the impact would be nothing less than devastating. As per estimates of the Planetary Society, any space rock bigger than 460ft (140m) across has the potential to wreak havoc in “a country-sized area”, the media reports said. If there was an impact then that would have caused “mass casualties” worse than any natural calamities in recorded history.

However, the NASA had then predicted that the chances of occurrence of such an event are small and the Asteroid 2020 DR2 would not crash into the Earth. According to the international group of astronomers, celestial objects bigger than 460ft (140m) have a one in 100 chance of hitting Earth every 100 years.