Giant Asteroid To Pass Close By Earth On Christmas Day According To NASA ✖ CTV News brings word that NASA reports of a "massive asteroid" perhaps larger than two football fields is closing in on our location and will be passing by Earth tomorrow, Christmas Day. Known as asteroid 501647 and also designated as "2014 SD224," the asteroid will be at its closest to Earth at around 3:20 P.M. ET. The good news is that the asteroid is not going to make contact with Earth and the closest it will come is within 1.8 million miles of the surface. For those keeping track at home, that means that the asteroid is a fraction of the size of one seen in popular disaster films. Take for example Deep Impact, which features a comet that is seven miles wide. The current asteroid is estimated to be between 92 and 210 meters (300 to 689 feet), making it roughly 2% the size of that famous space object. The asteroid as seen in Armageddon was even bigger though, measuring 600 miles in length and requiring the expertise of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck.