The 10 biggest asteroids that pose a threat to Earth in 2020

• 2020 will see a massive four-kilometre wide Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) make its approach towards Earth in April.
• Another kilometre sized space rock, Asteroid 136795 (1997 BQ), will be flying past the planet in May.
• Here’s a full list of the biggest asteroids that will be whizzing past Earth in 2020.

There are swarms of millions of asteroids in the Solar System. Most of them keep to themselves as they orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. But, a subset of these asteroids, have orbits that come in a little too close and cross the orbit of Earth around the Sun.

Not many pose a threat — but some astronomers think it’s only a matter of time before one of those little rocky worlds will crash into the planet.

"No human in the past 1000 years is known to have been killed by a meteorite or by the effects of one impacting," according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

While the Center of Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and the Near-Earth Object Coordination Center (NEOCC) claim that their detection methods are full-proof, that may not always be true. Asteroid 2019 OK wasn’t even on any of the detection radars when it passed a mere 73,000 kilometres from Earth on 26 July 2019.

History shows us that there have been a few close calls. In 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor streaked through the Russian skies and exploded only 30 kilometres from the surface. Though it wasn’t a direct impact, the force of 444,000 tons of TNT damaged buildings for 500 kilometres.

Here are the ten biggest asteroids set to approach the Earth in 2020: