An asteroid named for a Celtic god of war will come as close to Earth this week as it has since 1353.
The space rock known as Toutatis will come on Wednesday within 960,000 miles of Earth, relatively close by cosmic standards, Astronomy Magazine said in an e-mailed statement on Monday.
Toutatis poses no danger to Earth. However, if it did hit our planet, it would create a blast with the energy equivalent to 1 million ton of TNT.
Measuring about 3 miles by 1.5 miles, Toutatis will speed by Earth at 22,000 miles per hour.
This asteroid makes a roughly four-year trip around the sun that swings from just inside Earth's orbit to outside the orbit of Mars. Because both Earth and Toutatis are in continual motion, the distance between them at closest approach every four years varies greatly.