Keep an eye out, something is headed Earth’s way!

An asteroid the height of the Eiffel Tower is heading in the direction of earth and is due to reach its closest point just before Christmas.

4660 Nereus is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid and would cause a devastating impact if it hit Earth.

But NASA’s asteroid monitor has confirmed it poses no threat to humanity, despite being bigger than 90% of other asteroids at 330m.

Moving at 6.578 kilometres per second Nereus is almost 11 times faster than an F-16 fighter jet’s top speed.

On December 11 it will pass within 3.9 million kilometres of Earth — only 10 times the distance between us and the moon.

It will then move further away to 23 million kilometres on its next pass before dropping by for another close encounter of only 1.2 million kilometres in 2060.

Nereus is an Apollo-class asteroid that crosses the earth’s path as we orbit the sun.

It was first observed on September 30 1981 according to the website Space Reference.

We could reach it for exploration purposes in 426 days with a modern human-made rocket.

And scientists have even considered the adventure, according to The Mirror.

Japan once considered sending its spacecraft Hayabusa to check Nereus out.

Even NASA plotted to reach the over three football pitches-wide asteroid with its Robotic Asteroid Shoemaker Rendezvous probe.

Source: Agencies