Forget Apophis. A gigantic asteroid aptly named "The Beast" is scaring the astronomers tracking its near-Earth course.

The size of a Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, The Beast is estimated at over 1,000 feet wide and could generate an explosive force measured in megatons were it to strike the Earth. Scientists say it will only take a 100-foot wide object to do great destruction to the planet.

Like Us on Facebook

Thankfully, the Beast will not hit the Earth but will pass disconcertingly close to the planet at less than a million miles on June 8. In scientific terms, that distance is equivalent to 3.2 lunar distances or about 716,500 miles.

What is worrying astronomers is that The Beast, or Asteroid 2014 HQ124, its scientific name, was only detected on April 23 before its nearest approach to the Earth despite space surveillance systems scanning outer space for asteroids and other threats.

Astronomers have discovered some 90 percent of the potentially dangerous asteroids that are 1,000 feet wide or larger. On the other hand, they have detected only 30 percent of objects that are some 460 feet wide but just one percent of the objects the size of The Beast.

HQ214 is some 10 to 20 times bigger than the asteroid that injured a thousand people last year when it exploded in the air above Chelyabinsk in Siberia.

The Beast was discovered by the NASA Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. It is tearing through space at 31,000 miles per hour or 50,400 kilometers per hour. The Beast has been classified as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid." 

"If it were to impact us, the energy released would be measured not in kilotons like the atomic bombs that ended World War II, but in H-bomb type megatons," said Bob Berman, an astronomer with Internet astronomy outreach venture Slooh.

Slooh is a robotic telescope service that can be viewed live through a web browser with a Flash plug-in. 

Tagsasteroid, Earth, HQ214, The Beast, Astronomy