Football Field-Sized Asteroid to Approach Earth on Monday Night, One of Several in Coming Weeks

An asteroid slightly bigger than a football field is expected to fly past Earth Monday night, and some people may be lucky enough to witness it.
The asteroid, named 1994 WR12, is about 390 feet long, just 30 feet longer than a football field, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was first spotted by astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California in November 1994.
The asteroid had been on the Sentry Risk Table, a list of asteroids from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies that observers believed could strike Earth within the next 100 years. The asteroid was taken off the list in 2016.
An impact from 1994 WR12 would be catastrophic. NASA says it would strike with an explosion equal to 77 megatons of TNT. For reference, the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested, was the equivalent of 57 megatons of TNT, according to BBC.
Fortunately, the asteroid won’t be hitting Earth, but it will get as close as 3.8 million miles. It isn’t expected to get any closer to Earth until 2046, at about 1.01 million miles. CBS Sacramento reported California residents would be able to see the asteroid with a telescope from 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. PT.