No big deal: Two skyscraper-sized asteroids will zip by Earth this weekend

Who had asteroids zooming towards earth on their long weekend bingo card?

According to NASA, the first asteroid, called 2016 CZ31, will fly by Friday, July 29 just 2,800,000 kilometres away from Earth. The second larger asteroid, 2013 CU83, will hurtle past Earth at a much farther distance on Saturday, July 30.

Several reports claim the size of the first asteroid is 400-feet wide. This is roughly the same length of one baseball diamond, a cruise ship, or nine semi-trailers.

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The second asteroid is much larger at 600-feet wide. That’s exactly the same size as the Space Needle.

Seattle Space Needle (Edmund Lowe Photography/Shutterstock)

Space agencies keep a close watch on all near-Earth objects including these two asteroids. They’re not expected to strike Earth but will be closely monitored, should they deviate from their path.

Rest assured, NASA launched its asteroid-deflecting spacecraft, Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), last year, so if anything does happen the agency will act fast.

NASA says these space rocks gets closer to Earth every few years, with the next one scheduled to approach January 2028.

You can track of the two individual asteroids on NASA’s website here and here.