An asteroid half the size of a football ground will pass very close to the Earth later in the afternoon and the entire flyby of the rock will be telecast live on the NASA's TV network www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The Ottawa Citizen has reported that the show will begin at 2 pm Eastern Time with commentary from astronomers in NASA.

NASA held a press conference Feb 7 informing people that an asteroid will whiz past at a record setting closeness to the Earth.

When the asteroid will reach its closest approach to the Earth, it will be only 26,700 kilometers away from the Earth's surface, an area closer than where the man-made satellite systems are present. The distance is a mere one tenth of that between Earth and the moon.

"This passage of 2012 DA14 by Earth is a record close approach for a known object of this size," said NASA.

The 45 meters long, 130,000-tonne asteroid will be travelling at a staggering speed of 7.82 kilometers per second when it approaches nearest to the Earth's surface around 2:24 pm ET.

The animation telecast that will be made for about half an hour will continuously update the exact location of the asteroid and if the weather remains favorable, NASA will also show live photos of the asteroid, Ottawa Citizen has reported.

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