Asteroid bigger than Statue of Liberty to fly past Earth on Christmas, NASA says

An asteroid bigger than the Statue of Liberty will fly past Earth on Christmas Day, according to NASA.

The asteroid, called 2014 SD224, will be the closest to Earth on Dec. 25 and come within around 1.8 million miles to the planet, NASA said. This flyby will be the asteroid’s closest to Earth until 2078.

NASA reports that 2014 SD224 has a diameter of around 393 feet, which is bigger than the Statue of Liberty standing at 305 feet tall or a football field, which is 360 feet long.

The asteroid was first discovered Sept. 22, 2014, NASA says, and has an orbital period of around one year.

2014 SD224 is classified as a “Near-Earth Object” (NEO), but isn’t expected to cause any damage, KUTV reported. NASA defines “potentially hazardous” NEOs as those that measure more than 460 feet in diameter and come within 0.05 astronomical units, or about 4.65 million miles of Earth.

In November, an asteroid the size of a pickup truck flew by Earth, setting the record for the closest asteroid to zoom by the planet without hitting it, McClatchy News previously reported.