The asteroid, called 2002 AJ129, will make its closest approach to Earth at 4:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT), and will be about 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers) from our planet at its closest point, NASA officials said. At its closest, it will be 2.6 million miles from earth, or 10 times the distance between the Earth and the moon, according to a news report by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Twenty times the distance is a no-concern zone, and this one is 10 times the distance of the moon, which is right in the middle of where scientists start worrying,” Mark Shelton of the St. George Astronomy Group told St. George News, “but this one is not on a collision course with Earth.”

Although Asteroid 2002 AJ129 is categorized a “potentially hazardous asteroid,” a classification given to any asteroid larger than about 460 feet in diameter that comes closer than 4.6 million miles to Earth, it does not pose an actual threat of colliding with the planet on game day, or on any other day in the foreseeable future. [In Images: Potentially Dangerous Asteroids Tracked by NASA]

"We have been tracking this asteroid for over 14 years and know its orbit very accurately," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said in the statement. “Our calculations indicate that asteroid 2002 AJ129 has no chance – zero – of colliding with Earth on February 4 or any time over the next 100 years." The asteroid's unusually fast speed was likely caused by a its orbit, which brings 2002 AJ129 extremely close to the sun, whipping around the star at a range of 11 million miles (18 million km), NASA officials said. Many asteroids seem to have been captured by a planet’s gravity and then become moons, including two of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, along with most of the moons rotating around outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
As predicted, a ~600 meter asteroid named (276033) 2002 AJ129 makes a close approach to Earth of 0.028 Astronomical units (4.2 million km, 2.6 million mi).