Massive asteroid approaching Earth on May 16

American space agency NASA has warned that a massive asteroid is heading towards the Earth.

NASA is monitoring the space rock Asteroid 388945 (2008 TZ3) and said that it will get close to our planet at 2.48am local time on May 16.

The space agency said that the asteroid is estimated to be wider than 960 feet. In comparison, it is 50 times as tall as a giraffe and almost as big as the Eiffel Tower.

If the asteroid hits, it can be catastrophic. The calculations by NASA, however, show that the asteroid is almost 5.7 million kilometres away from the planet. 

NASA has flagged the upcoming incident as a "close approach" because, in space terms, this is not considered a lot of distance.

NDTV reported that Asteroid 388945 visited us in May 2020 as well and was even closer to us then.