ROCK GOD
A GIANT asteroid named after a foolhardy Greek god who nearly wiped out all life on our planet is hurtling towards Earth.
The space rock 3200 Phaethon is due to brush “quite close” on December 17, Russian astronomers have revealed.
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And NASA has described the space rock as a "potentially hazardous asteroid whose path misses Earth’s orbit by only two million miles." Just up the road in space terms.
The asteroid is about half the size of Chicxulub, which wiped out the dinosaurs, but was a lot bigger.
Its unusual orbit means it will pass closer to our sun than any other named asteroid.
Astronomers from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have now published a video that tracks its path.
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The uni wrote: "Apparently, this asteroid was once a much bigger object, but its many approaches to the Sun have caused it to crumble into smaller pieces."
Phathon 3200 will be accompanied by the Geminids meteor shower, which is at its most active from December 13-14, when as many as 100 meteors flicker in the sky and then burn out.
In the legend, Phaethon was the son of the Greek sun god Helios, who pulled the sun across the skies by a chariot.
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To prove his divine powers, Phaethon decided to have a go, but he lost control of the chariot and ended up dragging the hot sun with him.
Humanity was almost destroyed in the subsequent chaos, which scorched the Earth, burned vast amounts of vegetation and created the great deserts of Africa.
The Earth was only spared when Zeus blasted the horses with a thunderbolt.
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