A large asteroid is expected to come close to the Earth as it flies past on Wednesday. The distance between the planet and the asteroid when the two are closest to each other will be around 1.8 million kilometres, Reuters quoted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as saying. The asteroid, around 400 metres wide, will pass the Earth safely, the report added.

The celestial body, which was christened 2014 J025 after being discovered three years ago, will be the largest asteroid to fly this close to the Earth since 2004. In 204, a 3.1-mile-wide asteroid called Toutatis had passed about four lunar distances, or just under a million miles (1.6 million km), from the Earth.

The 2014 J025 is twice as reflective as the moon and expected to be visible to stargazers on Wednesday night. It will not be visible to the naked eye, the report said.

“We know the time that the object is going to be closest within seconds, and the distance is known within hundreds of kilometres (miles),” Davide Farnocchia, a mathematician at Nasa’s Near-Earth Object programme, told the news agency.