But "close proximity" is a relative term: when it passes us by at at 11:38 ET tonight, it'll do so from 5 million miles outside of Earth's orbit, according to a report by Space.com. Lindley Johnson, a planetary defence officer at Nasa, told Space.com: ‘This object is merely designated a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) because its orbit over time wings it within five million miles of Earth’s orbit, but there is nothing hazardous to Earth or even unique about this pass of the asteroid.’

Humanity doesn’t need to fear gigantic asteroids big enough to wipe us off the face of the Earth, because they are easy to track due to their enormous size. “This project brings nothing that we don’t have already,” Mark McCaughrean, a scientist at the European Space Agency, tweeted recently about Orbital Reflector.
The European Space Agency (ESA) unveils two titanium plaques etched with artwork, which will be part of the outside of the CHEOPS exoplanet-characterization satellite during its orbit around Earth.