NASA/JPL

Discovered by the LaSagra observatory in southern Spain, the asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass within about 3.5 Earth radii of the Earth's surface on Feb. 15, 2013.

An asteroid half the size of a football field will give Earth the ultimate close shave this month, passing closer than many satellites when it whizzes by, but it won't hit the planet, NASA scientists say.

The asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly by Earth on Feb. 15 and zip within 17,200 miles of the planet during the cosmic close encounter. The asteroid will approach much closer to Earth than the moon, and well inside the paths of navigation and communications satellites.

"This is a record-setting close approach," Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's asteroid-tracking program, said in a statement. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth."

Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered last year by an amateur team of stargazers at the La Sagra Sky Survey observatory in Spain. Yeomans  stressed that, while the asteroid's approach bring it closer than the geosynchronous satellites  orbiting 22,245 miles above Earth, 2012 DA14 poses no threat of a deadly collision with the planet.

http://www.wunderground.com/news/asteroid-close-to-earth-20130204