NEO asteroid nearly the size of the Washington Monument set to pass Earth

An asteroid estimated to be roughly 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter, or about 30 feet (9 meters) shy of the height of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., will zoom past Earth early Wednesday morning — though it does not appear to pose any threat.

NASA is tracking an asteroid classified as a near-Earth object, or NEO, named 2013 WV44.

According to the space agency’s website, NEOs are "comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood."

MASSIVE ASTEROID TO PASS BY EARTH THIS WEEKEND

"Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids fo...