An asteroid nicknamed "The Beast" is set to fly by Earth on 8 June, travelling at a speed of 31,000mph.

Discovered in April by Nasa's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise), Asteroid 2014 HQ124 has an estimated diameter of 325 metres - roughly the size of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

According to Nasa, the Minor Planet Center has classified 2014 HQ124 as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid". It is set to fly past Earth just three lunar distances away.

Slooh Community Telescope will cover The Beast live on 5 June, starting at 11.30am PDT, 2.30pm EDT and 6.30pm UTC. The event will be broadcast from Australia, featuring time lapse imagery from Slooh's robotic observatory in Chile.

Viewers can watch the live asteroid broadcast free on Slooh.com. The image stream will be accompanied by discussions led by Slooh host, Geoff Fox, Slooh astronomer, Bob Berman, and Dr Mark Boslough, an expert on planetary impacts and global catastrophes.

Viewers can follow updates on the programme by using the hashtag #Sloohbeast, and it will also be broadcast on the Goldstone Deep Space Network.

While it is not unusual for asteroids to fly past Earth, or just outside the orbit of the moon, it is less common to discover a previously unknown celestial object of that size.

Just recently, Slooh announced a partnership with Nasa, as part of the Asteroid Grand Challenge, to engage citizen scientists to track and characterise near-Earth asteroids using Slooh's network of observatories.

Asteroid 2014 HQ124 is an eye-opening reminder of the potential dangers of asteroid impacts and the importance of acquiring and tracking asteroid orbits.

It is estimated that while 90% of the asteroids over 1000 metres have been discovered, only 30% of the 140 metre-sized Near Earth Asteroids have been found, with less than 1% of the 30 metre-sized having been detected.

Even a 30 metre-sized asteroid can cause significant damage to a major city.

Currently, the asteroid is inclined to the plane of the solar system by 26 degrees. On 6 June, it will brighten to a magnitude of 13.7 and enter the southern constellation Horologium.

On 8 June, the asteroid will cross the celestial equator to become a northern hemisphere object, but it will have an elongation of approximately 20 degrees from the Sun, according to Space.com.

The minor planet was discovered by Nasa's Wide Field Infrared Survey, an infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope launched in December 2009.

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