A ROCK hurtling through space will make a close encounter with Earth on Saturday, according to Nasa.

But don't cancel the BBQ just yet - it's unlikely to smash into our planet.

3 An asteroid is set to flash past Earth at the end of the month

If it did, it could potentially wipe out life as we know it.

So Nasa is keeping an eye on it just in case.

The asteroid - named 441987 (2010 NY65) - is marked as a concern because it's 230 metres in diameter and travelling just 7.9 lunar distances (that's about three million km) from us.

3 This Nasa model shows how close the asteroid will come to Earth on Saturday

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If it were to strike, its weight could impact with a force 300 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, scientists have predicted.

2010 NY65 was discovered on July 10, 2010 by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft and is expected to make yearly close approaches to Earth until 2022.

It might sound far-fetched, but experts have warned that an asteroid crash that would wipe out humanity could be imminent.

Dr Alan Fitzsimmons, speaking ahead of asteroid week this month, said there is currently nothing we can do to stop a large space rock heading our way – and the impact would be catastrophic.

3 This asteroid rotation map shows how close 441987 (2010 NY65) will swoop by the Earth

Dr Fitzsimmons is a member of the NEOshield-2 project, funded by the European Research Council to study how to deflect dangerous asteroids.

After all, that's what scientists believe wiped out the dinosaurs.

They suggest a huge asteroid nine miles wide that blasted into the Gulf of Mexico 66million years ago sent clouds of vaporised rock into the atmosphere, creating a “global winter” that made 75 per cent of plant and animal species extinct.

In January a space rock the size of a ten-storey building and travelling at ten miles a second skimmed past the Earth at a distance just half that to the moon.

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