A large space rock, asteroid 2005 YY128, 580 to 1,300 meters in diameter, will pass tonight (at 2:46 a.m. Thursday) within a safe distance of 4.5 million kilometers from our planet, which is about 12 times the distance of Earth- Moon.

This is estimated to be its closest approach in four centuries, according to Space.com.

The asteroid was discovered in 2005 by American astronomers, who over the past 17 years have studied its orbit with high precision, although there is some uncertainty about its exact size.

It belongs to the category of potentially hazardous asteroids, a designation given to space rocks of at least 140 meters that approach within less than 0.05 astronomical units (one such unit is the average Earth-Sun distance, or about 150 million km).

NASA and other space agencies estimate that they have detected at least 95% of asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter that approach Earth at a distance of at least 50 million km.

To date none pose a threat for the foreseeable future, according to their orbit calculations.