An asteroid the size of the Eiffel Tower is heading towards Earth. But there is no need to panic as it will pose no threat to humanity, according to NASA.

T4660 Nereus is classified as a ‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroid’ (PHA). ‘Egg shaped’ and roughly triple the size of a football pitch, it will only come close to Earth on December 11, according to a NASA prediction.

It is 330 metres long, which makes it larger than 90% of all known asteroids. However, it is small compared to the big ones, according to Space Reference.

Fortunately, Nereus will not pose a threat to our planet and fly by at a distance of 3.9 million kilometres, a distance 10 times greater than that between Earth and the Moon.

According to NASA, the asteroid orbits the sun every 664 days. It will pass by Earth at a great distance and is predicted not to come close to the planet until 2 March 2031 again.

Nereus is not a newly-discovered asteroid. US astronomer  Eleanor F. Helin spotted it for the first time in the year 1982. It then went on to be classified as a member of the Apollo group of asteroids which are known for crossing the path of the Earth as it orbits the Sun.

Like other Apollo-class asteroids, Nereus’ orbit puts it frequents close to Earth. It actually orbits almost twice for every orbit of Earth, making missions to explore the asteroid easy and feasible.

NASA scientists have already proposed missions to the Nereus asteroid. But the plans never materialised for various reasons.

The space agency wanted to send Robotic Asteroid Shoemaker Rendezvous (NEAR) probe to the asteroid. On the other hand, Japan had assessed sending the robotic spacecraft Hayabusa to Nereus.

Back in September, an asteroid bigger than the Big Ben clock tower was set to crash through the Earth’s orbit. The rock came within 1,804,450 miles of Earth.