NASA: A huge asteroid will pass through the Earth next Friday and there is no fear of colliding with the planet

A giant asteroid called Florence will pass Earth's side on September 1, only 4.4 million miles from our planet on Friday, NASA said, equaling 18 times the distance between Earth and the moon.According to NASA, this is the nearest asteroid of this magnitude approaching the Earth since NASA began tracking NEOs for the first time, giving scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study them closely through terrestrial radar monitoring.The asteroid would be large enough to end life on Earth if it collided, but NASA reassured the world that this could not happen. The asteroid would pass safely by Earth at a distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), although it is not the closest encounter of our planet to an asteroid the size."While many known asteroids passed near Earth like Florence on September 1, they were smaller," said Paul Chaudas,

director of NASA's Space Studies Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Agency."Florence is the largest asteroid that has passed through our planet since the NASA program began to detect and track asteroids near Earth," Chudas said.The asteroid Florence Nightingale was first spotted in 1981, and its September tour will be the closest to Earth since 1890.