ASTRONOMY:An asteroid approximately 1.5km (one mile) across will come close enough to the earth to be seen through a telescope from today.
This is the closest approach predicted for an object this bright until May 2036, and will be visible until April 5th.
Asteroid 2006 VV2 will be most visible on Saturday night, when it will come within 8.8 lunar distances of our planet.
This is just under nine times the distance between the earth and the moon, which is about 400,000km (248,548 miles).
"Not a close shave, as it were," said David Moore, chairman of Astronomy Ireland.
"But it will be visible."
One potential setback for hopeful viewers is that there will be a "waxing gibbous moon" that night. In layman's terms, this means that the moon will be big and bright.
"The moon tends to brighten up the sky, so it could potentially spoil the view," said Mr Moore.
Another interesting aspect of the 2006 VV2 is that there is a one in six chance that it will consist of not one, but two rocks in close orbit.
This phenomenon is the result of collisions with other asteroids. If such collisions are not too fast, the broken pieces remain within each other's force fields.