An asteroid which is about the size of three double decker buses will travel closely past Earth tonight, as it passes between our planet and the moon.

The Apollo class asteroid, named 2014 DX110, will reach a minimum distance of less than 217,000 miles (350,000 km) from us, yet poses very little risk of collision.

However, 2014 DX110 will provide spectacular views for those watching as it passes at 33,000 mph (14.85 km/s) past Earth. The Virtual Telescope Project and the Slooh space camera will be providing a live, online streaming of the asteroid.

The webcast will begin tomorrow night at 20:30 GMT (15:30 EST) and the closest approach will be at 21:07 GMT (16:07 EST).

Bob Berman, a Slooh astronomer, told Fox News: "On a practical level, a previously-unknown, undiscovered asteroid seems to hit our planet and cause damage or injury once a century or so, as we witnessed on June 20, 1908 and February 15, 2013.

"Every few centuries, an even more massive asteroid strikes us — fortunately usually impacting in an ocean or wasteland such an Antarctica.

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"But the on-going threat, and the fact that biosphere-altering events remain a real if small annual possibility, suggests that discovering and tracking all near Earth objects, as well as setting up contingency plans for deflecting them on short notice should the need arise, would be a wise use of resources."

2014 DX110 is an Apollo class asteroid, which means it has an Earth-crossing orbit.

Currently, there are 240 known Apollos, but astronomers have suggested there may be up to 2,000 more with diameters of more than 1km.

The impact of an Apollo asteroid could create a crater of up to 20 times its size, which would force dust into the atmosphere and potentially block sunlight for several years.

2014 DX110 is currently listed on NASA's risk page for a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of impact with Earth on 4th March 2046. Visually, 2014 DX110 is not expected to brighten above +15th magnitude as it moves through the constellation of Camelopardalis at closest approach.

It was first discovered by the Pan-STARRS 1 survey on 28th February. After initial observations, its orbit was tracked using the Great Shefford Observatory in West Berkshire, England.

Last month, Jose Madiedo, a professor at the University of Huelva, spotted an asteroid crash into the moon at 61,000km/h. It was the largest moon impact ever recorded, which created a 40-metre-wide crater and released energy equivalent to an explosion of 15 tonnes of TNT.

The crash produced an eight-second afterglow, which was captured on camera before the asteroid vapourised. Details were published by the Royal Astronomical Society.