Asteroid with ‘extremely eccentric orbit’ travelling at 125,528km/h will miss Earth by inches on October 31

USA: An asteroid spotted less than a fortnight ago is set to fly past the Earth on Halloween at over 125,528km/h.

Designated 2015 TB145, the asteroid will pass our planet by only 499,000 kilometers - the closest pass since July 2006.

And while NASA is constantly scanning and tracking potential Earth-buzzing asteroids , this one was only spotted on October 10 - less than a fortnight ago.

"The asteroid is on an extremely eccentric and a high inclination orbit," explained the space agency .

And while the experts monitoring the space rock don't have an actual size, they estimate it could be anything between 280 to 620m in diameter.

Although you won't be able to see the asteroid with the naked eye , it will be visible with a telescope.

 

"This is the closest approach by a known object this large until 1999 AN10 approaches within 1 lunar distance in August 2027," said NASA.

 

The 2015 TB145 asteroid is classified as a potentially hazardous object as it falls well within the 4,600,000 mile threshold of proximity to Earth.

 

But even despite the erratic orbit and close pass, NASA is confident the asteroid won't hit us.

The space agency uses its highly automated collision monitoring system Sentry to continually scan the most current asteroid catalog for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years.

None of the thousands of objects on NASA's risk monitoring system are regarded as likely to impact earth greatly.

The maximum detected hazard rating using the Torino Impact Hazard Scale is 10.

A Torino Scale rating of 1 indicates an event that "merits careful monitoring" but currently all threats have been marked at zero.