Asteroid 2021 EQ3 was detected by the Mt. Lemmon Survey and reported by the NASA-funded Minor Planet Center on March 11. NASA states its first observations of the asteroid were on March 10.

The space rock is thought to be traveling at 11.99 kilometers per second relative to Earth. This is equal to around 26,800 miles per hour, or 30 times faster than a handgun bullet. It is estimated to be between 52 feet and 121 feet in diameter.

During its close approach at 12:41a.m. EDT on March 16, 2021 EQ3 is going to pass Earth at a distance of around 0.72 lunar distances, or 172,000 miles.

The Italy-based Virtual Telescope Project is going to be showing the close pass live, starting at 6 p.m. EDT tonight.

Gianluca Masi, founder and scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project, said in a statement: “The newly discovered asteroid 2021 EQ3 will have a very close, but safe close encounter with our planet next 16 Mar. at 04:47 UTC.

“It has an estimated size [of] 16m - 37m and the Virtual Telescope Project will be showing it live, online, when it will be at its brightest (magnitude 15.7), well-placed in the Italian sky.”

The Virtual Telescope Project also managed to get a snapshot of the asteroid on March 13 just a couple of days after it was discovered, when it was at a distance of about 2.4 million kilometers from Earth.

The image can be seen below. It shows the asteroid as a white dot of light against a backdrop of blurred stars. The stars are not clear in the image because the telescope was tracking the asteroid as it moved.

The image was taken from a single 300-second exposure shot captured remotely with a PlaneWave 17-inch telescope attached to a robotic stand.

Despite its late detection and relatively close pass to Earth, 2021 EQ3 should pose no danger to our planet given its current trajectory. Some asteroids with trajectories that line up with the Earth’s have caused concern in the past due to the danger they could collide with our planet.

On March 8, NASA issued a statement assuring Twitter followers that the huge asteroid 2001 FO32 will safely fly past Earth when it makes a relatively close pass on March 21.

The asteroid is large at over half a kilometer in diameter, but it is estimated to pass Earth at five times the distance between us and the Moon.