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‘Potentially hazardous’ asteroid wider than world’s tallest building is hurtling towards Earth

NASA says asteroid the size of a sky scraper hurtling towards Earth is ‘potentially hazardous’

A huge asteroid which is as wide as the world’s tallest building – Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – is tall will whizz past our planet in a fortnight’s time.

The 2002 AJ129 asteroid is classified as ‘potentially hazardous’ by NASA – but will definitely miss our planet on this pass.

It’s 0.7 miles wide, and will pass our planet 2,615,128 miles away on 4th February.

It’ll fly past at 67,000mph, making it the largest and fastest space object to go past our planet this year, the Daily Star reports.

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An impact with a rock of this size could plunge the Earth into a mini Ice Age, NASA warned in a 2016 study.

Temperatures could fall by up to 8 degrees Celsius and the effects could last for up to 10 years due to soot in the atmosphere.

‘These would not be pleasant times,’ Charles Bardeen, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.