Summer is the season for tourists, and that includes a cosmic traveler — one that’s three times the length of a football field — that’s expected to visit Earth’s neighborhood later this week.

We’re using the term “neighborhood” loosely here; the heavenly tourist (yes, it’s an asteroid), known as 2008 KV2, is expected to zip by at a distance of about 4.2 million miles (6.7 million kilometers) from Earth on Thursday (June 27). But even though this visitor will be far away, the event’s still notable; it’s not every day that such a big space rock hurtles by our planet.

To put 2008 KV2’s distance from Earth into perspective, the moon is about 238,900 miles (384,400 km) away from us, and the asteroid will be more than 17 times that distance.

source: space.com