How close? Closer than the moon, which is around 250,000 miles away. The predicted distance for the asteroid is about 1/10 of that, maybe around 26,000 miles.
"We're confident it won't hit earth" says Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
Thanks, Paul we have faith in you.
The asteroid is determined to be about the size of a Kenworth tractor/trailer and steaming along at a shade under 16,000 mph. Oh, and most likely hauling a load of iron, nickel, iridium, palladium, platinum, gold, magnesium and other heavenly precious metals.
The only information available so far is that will be moving in a trajectory from north to east, from our vantage point. The exact time of day will be determined as it moves closer over the next week; Mid America Live will provide updates with more details as they become available.
In the meantime, you can read more about it here https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/asteroid-flyby-will-benefit-nasa-detection-and-tracking-network
